Henry Hills I (d. 1689; fl. 1641–1688)
Henry Hills I, printer in Oxford and London. Oxford: Pennyfarthing Street, 1647. London, 1641–88: at the sign of Sir John Oldcastle in Fleet yard next door to the Rose & Crown; at the sign of Sir John Old-Castle in Py-Corner; and Over against St. Thomas's Hospitall in Southwark.
A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667, by Henry Plomer (1907)
HILLS (HENRY), printer in Oxford and London. Oxford: Pennyfarthing Street, 1647. London: (1) sign of Sir John Oldcastle in Fleet yard next door to the Rose & Crown; (2) At the sign of Sir John Old-Castle in Py-Corner; (3) Over against St. Thomas's Hospitall in Southwark. 1641–88. Son of a rope-maker in Maidstone. Sent to London when very young and acted first as postillion to Harrison the regicide, who transferred him to John Lilburne, by whom he was apprenticed to Simmons & Payne, printers. In 1642 he ran away and joined the army, and was present at the battle of Edge Hill. In 1648 he was a Leveller and subsequently an Independent, and offered to print Cromwell's Remonstrance. He was subsequently made printer to the Rebel Army, see Harris (J.). In 1649, in company with Thomas Brewster and Giles Calvert, he was appointed "printer" to the Council of State. After 1653 he held the position alone. He was also appointed one of the "printers" to the Parliament in conjunction with John Field, q.v. a post he held until the Restoration. He was still living in 1684, when a broadside was issued entitled A View of part of the many traiterous, disloyal, and turn-about actions of H. H. senior, sometimes printer to Cromwell, to the Commonwealth, to the Anabaptists Congregation, to Cromwells Army, Committee of Safety, etc., [B.M. 816, m. 2 (60); Solly, E.; Henry Hills, the pirate printer; Antiquary, vol ii. April, 1885, pp. 151–154.] Amongst his publications was Ill-Newes from New England. By John Clark, 1652.
A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers who were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725, by Henry Plomer (1922)
HILLS (HENRY), sen., printer in London, 1641–89. See Dictionary, 1641-67. As considerable confusion and error is found in all the accounts of the later life of this printer, the D.N.B. for example stating that he died in 1713, the following additional information about him is now recorded. About the year 1670 Henry Hills, sen., became one of the assigns of John Bill the Second and Christopher Barker the Third in the King's Printing House in Blackfriars. He afterwards became a Roman Catholic, with the result that on December i2th, 1688, a mob attacked the printing house in Blackfriars, "spoiled his Formes, Letters, &c., and burnt 200 or 300 reams of paper printed and imprinted." [English Currant, December 12th–14th, 1688.] Hills fled for his life to St. Omer, where he died shortly afterwards, his will being proved on January 21st, 1689. Probate was granted to Gilham Hills his son by his first wife; the executors were Elizabeth Hills the widow and Adiell Mill, being one a recusant and the other a bankrupt. His children were Henry Hills jun., Gilham Hills, James Hills, and George Hills, the two latter by his second wife. He also had a son John, who was dead at the time of the making of the will, and a daughter Dorothy, married to a man named Edwin. [P.C.C. 6, Dyke.] Both his sons Henry and Gilham became printers and during his father's lifetime, Henry Hills jun. was so-called, in spite of which he has been confused with his father. One of them, presumably the father, was junior warden of the Company of Stationers in 1682–4, and Master in 1687–9.