George Alexander Hillier (1815–1866) was an English antiquarian.

Life

The eldest son of William Hillier, commander R.N., he was born at

Kennington Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between th ...

, and was educated at Place Street House, near

Ryde, Isle of Wight Ryde is an English seaside town and civil parish on the north-east coast of the Isle of Wight. The built-up area had a population of 24,096 according to the United Kingdom Census 2021, 2021 Census. Its growth as a seaside resort came after the ...

. A bookseller and printer, he was declared bankrupt in July 1839. In the later 1840s Hillier was undertaking antiquarian and family history researches, with access to the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. In 1853 he was acting as a dealer in manuscripts, which he sold to the museum; then shortly the provenance and authenticity of the manuscripts came under suspicion.

Frederic Madden Sir Frederic Madden KH (16 February 1801 – 8 March 1873) was an English palaeographer and librarian. Biography Born in Portsmouth, he was the son of William John Madden (1757–1833), a captain in the Royal Marines of Irish origin, and h ...

broke off the relationship, but the potential scandal was hushed up. In this "Hillier affair", the evidence points to Hillier's having obtained access to Madden through his assistant Richard Sims, with genuine manuscripts from

Mostyn Hall Mostyn Hall is a large house standing in 25 acres (10 hectares) of garden near the village of Mostyn, Flintshire, Wales. It is designated by Cadw as a Grade I listed building. History It is not known for how long a building has been present ...

and

Bridgewater House, Runcorn Bridgewater House is in the Old Coach Road, Runcorn, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. Originally built for the use of the Duke of Bridgewater, it has sin ...

to sell, as Madden's investigation with

John Payne Collier John Payne Collier (11 January 178917 September 1883) was an English writer and scholar. He was well known for publishing many books on Shakespeare. However, his reputation has declined as a result of the Perkins Folio forgery. Reporter and soli ...

(much later shown to be a forger) quickly concluded. The discovery of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Chessell Down in the Isle of Wight, and the excavation of the graves, was Hillier's significant contribution to archæology. Once more his good faith came into question, however, when artefacts for which he had agreed a sale with Lord Londesborough went to a pawnbroker. Hillier died at Ryde on 1 April 1866, and was buried at

Binstead Binstead is a village in the civil parish of Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, England. It is located in the northeast part of the Island, west of Ryde on the main road A3054 between Ryde and Newport. In the 2011 Census Binstead had been incorpora ...

Works

Hillier's works included: * ''The Topography of the Isle of Wight. To which is appended, a Voyage round the Island'', Ryde, 1850. *''A Voyage Round the Isle of Wight'', 1850. *''A Day at Arundel; comprising the antiquities of the Castle, ecclesiastical associations, and neighbouring beauties'', 1851 (2nd edition) * ''A Narrative of the attempted Escapes of Charles the First from Carisbrook Castle, and of his detention in the Isle of Wight. Including the letters of the King to Colonel Titus, now first deciphered and printed from the originals'', London 1852. * ''The Sieges of Arundel Castle, by Sir Ralph Hopton and Sir William Waller'', London 1854. *''Result of the Excavations on Brighstone and Bowcombe Downs, Isle of Wight, August 1854'', 1854. * ''A Memorial of the Castle of Carisbrook'', London 1855. * ''The Stranger's Guide to the town of Reading, with a History of the Abbey'', Reading, 1859. A long-term project, a ''History and Antiquities of the Isle of Wight'', was left incomplete. Hillier was also employed in illustrating Charles Warne's ''Dorsetshire'', and travelled with the author to prepare the map.

Notes

Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Hillier, George 1815 births 1866 deaths 19th-century English antiquarians 19th-century English businesspeople