1893 text
Thomas Hill, a man whose taste for music caused him to be a very acceptable companion to Pepys. In January, 1664-65, he became assistant to the secretary of the Prize Office.
This text comes from a footnote on a diary entry in the 1893 edition edited by Henry B. Wheatley.
3 Annotations
First Reading
Michael Robinson • Link
Per L&M Companion:
(?1630 - 75) Merchant and close friend. His father was Alderman Richard Hill, of Lime Street, (d. 1660), who was Treasurer of Sequestrations 1642-9 and a Prize Commissioner 1652-9. The eldest of Thomas's five brothers was Abraham, who, inheriting a fortune from his father, became one of the original fellows of the Royal Society and its Treasurer 1663-5 and 1679-1700. Thomas himself had a minor post in the Prize Commission during the First Dutch War but went into business and was in Italy in 1657, after which he spent most of his working life in Lisbon as an agent of the Houblons. He occasionally supplied victuals etc. to Tangier. He died at Lisbon in 1675 and James Houblon Jr. - with Pepys his closest friend - was one of his executors. It was Hill who introduced Morelli the musician into Pepys's household in 1673.
Soulton Hall, Shropshire, acquired by Thomas Hill by descent and still owned by his descendants:
http://www.soultonhall.co.uk/
http://www.soultonhall.co.uk/soul…
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
Thomas Hill, a merchant, had been in Italy ca. 1659.
Third Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
Although Pepys often refers in his Diary to Thomas Hill, he remains a somewhat shadowy figure. It is now possible to reconstruct his portrait. Hill emerges as a man after the diarist’s own heart — learned, inquisitive, sociable, garrulous.
In this article, D. Pepys Whiteley recalls their friendship, which began in 1664 and continued until the merchant left England for Portugal.
Readers of Pepys’ Diary will be familiar with the name of Thomas Hill who, although frequently and always affectionately referred to as a constant visitor to the Pepys’ house in Seething Lane for what a later generation called “musical evenings at home,” remains, none the less, a somewhat shadowy figure.
A portrait of Thomas Hill as a young man presented to Magdalene College, Cambridge around 1945, and later made more accessible, together with an opportunity to read some family letters written to and by Hill during his early years abroad, have shed a fresh light on Pepys’ friend and allow a rather firmer outline sketch to be made of his life and background.
The letters reflect a tranquil Puritan background and show that Tom Hill sprang from a happy and united West-Country family which in the 1630s had settled in Lime Street in the City of London, where the father and his 6 sons became engaged in a prosperous business which involved the ownership of sailing-ships, plying regularly abroad, and on their behalf bartering and exchanging the cargo carried.
FROM
D.Pepys Whiteley | Published in History Today Volume 15 Issue 8 August 1965
https://www.historytoday.com/arch…