Aaron Hill

Aaron Hill, poet and dramatist, was buried in the west cloister of Westminster Abbey on 18th February 1750 alongside his wife Margaret (daughter of Edmund Morris, grocer of Stratford in Essex) who had been buried there on 30th June 1731, aged 37. He seems never to have had any inscribed gravestone.

He was the eldest son of George Hill, of Malmesbury in Wiltshire and his brother was Gilbert. Born in the Strand in London on 10th February 1685 he was educated at Westminster School and travelled abroad, visiting a distant relative Lord Paget in Constantinople. Later he wrote "A full and just account of the present state of the Ottoman Empire". For a time he was secretary to the Earl of Peterborough. He married in 1710 but only four of his nine children reached maturity (many being baptised at St Margaret's Westminster). His son was Julius and daughters Urania (who married Warren Johnson), Astrea and Minerva. He was noted as a dramatic writer and wrote the libretto for Handel's first opera staged in England and was manager of the Opera house in the Haymarket. Many of his speculative schemes failed.

Further reading

"Works of the late Aaron Hill" 4 vols. 1753

"Aaron Hill, poet, dramatist, projector" by D. Brewster 1913

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2004