William Hillary

Sir William Hillary, 1st Baronet (4 January 1770 – 5 January 1847) was a British militia officer, author and philanthropist, best known as the founder, in 1824, of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

Life

Hillary's background was Quaker, from a Yorkshire family: he was the son of the merchant Richard Hillary and his wife, Hannah Wynne. He left Liverpool at age 26, and travelled to Italy. From his contacts there, he became equerry to Prince Augustus Frederick, the young son of George III, and spent two years in the post.

While Hillary was in Naples, the Prince and Sir William Hamilton sent him on a mission to Malta. There Hillary saw the election (July 1797) of the last of the Grand Masters of the Knights of Malta, Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim. On this trip he also sailed round Malta and Sicily in an open boat.

Hillary then travelled north with the incognito Prince, heading for Berlin. After a period there, he left the Prince's employ and returned to London in the autumn of 1799.

Back in England, Hillary married in 1800. He had departed from Quaker beliefs, and his wife was not a Quaker. He had been left property by John Scott, his father's business partner and nephew; and then inherited West Indian estates from his elder brother Richard, who died in 1803. He quickly dissipated a large fortune, and had to sell properties including the old Yorkshire home of Rigg House.

Hillary spent some £20,000, on creating the First Essex Legion of infantry and cavalry, recruited largely from the Dengie Hundred and present-day Maldon District areas in Essex, after the end in 1803 of the Peace of Amiens, and was given the title Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant. The force numbered 1,400. He was rewarded with a baronetcy in 1805.