Thomas Wright Hill (Kidderminster 24 April 1763–Tottenham, 13 June 1851) was a schoolmaster and steganographer. He is credited as inventing the single transferable vote in 1821. His son, Rowland Hill, famous as the originator of the modern postal system, introduced STV in 1840 into the world's first public election, for the Adelaide City Council, in which the principle of proportional representation was applied.

In 1791, Thomas Wright Hill courageously tried to save the apparatus of Dr Joseph Priestley from a mob in the Birmingham 'Church and King' riots of 1791 - the offer was declined.

In 1803 he bought a boys' school named Hill Top on Lionel Street, Birmingham and, in 1819, they moved to a new purpose-built school designed by Rowland at Hazelbrook called Hazelwood on Hagley Road in Edgbaston.

Contents 1 Hill and the Single Transferable Vote 2 Family 3 References 4 Sources

[edit] Hill and the Single Transferable Vote

In 1819, Thomas and Rowland were instrumental in founding the Society for Literary and Scientific Improvement of Birmingham. The Society's bylaws include a description of Hill's method of proportional representation, the earliest known version^[1] of the Single Transferable Vote:

X. At the first meeting in April, and also in October, a Committee shall be elected, which shall consist of at least one fifth of the members of the society. The mode of election shall be as follows. A ticket shall be delivered to each member present, with his own name at the head of it, immediately under which he shall write the name of the member whom he may wish to represent him in the Committee. The votes thus given shall be delivered to the president, who, after having assorted them, shall report to the meeting the number of votes given for each nominee. Every one who has five votes shall be declared a member of the committee; if there are more than five votes given to any one person, the surplus votes, (to be selected by lot) shall be returned to the electors whose naames they bear, for the purpose of making other nominations, and this process shall be repeated till no surplus votes remain, when all the inefficient votes shall be returned to the respective electors, and the same routine shall be gone through a second time, and also a third time if necessary; when if a number is elected, equal in all to one half of the number of which the committee shoud consist, they shall be a committee; and if at the close of the meeing the number is not filled up, by unanimous votes of five for each member of the committee, given by those persons whose votes were returned to them at the end of the third election, then this committee shall have the power, and shall be required, to choose persons to fill up their number; and the constituents of each member so elected shall, if necessary, be determined by lot. …^[2]

Hill's grandson (and Rowland's nephew) George Birkbeck Norman Hill wrote, "The plan of election had been devised by his [Rowland's] father who … was strongly in favour of the representation of minorities."^[3]

In 1821, Hill used an informal version of proportional representation in his school.

…[Hill's] pupils were asked to elect a committee by standing beside the boy they liked best. This first produced a number of unequal groups, but soon the boys in the largest groups came to the conclusion that not all of them were actually necessary for the election of their favourite and some moved on to help another candidate, while on the other hand the few supporters of an unpopular boy gave him up as hopeless and transferred themselves to the candidate they considered the next best. The final result was that a number of candidates equal to the number required for the committee were each surrounded by the same number of supporters, with only two or three boys left over who were dissatisfied with all those elected. This is an admirable example of the use of STV.^[4]

In 1827, Thomas Wright Hill moved the school to Bruce Castle, Tottenham, London.

[edit] Family

Thomas Wright Hill married Sarah Lea on 29 July 1791 at St Martin's Church, Birmingham and had at least 8 children:

1. Matthew Davenport Hill (1792-1872), the criminal law reformer
2. Edwin Hill (1793-1876), mechanical inventor and writer on currency
3. Rowland Hill (1795-1879), the postal reformer
4. Arthur Hill (1798-1885), headmaster
5. Caroline Hill (1800-1877)
6. Frederick Hill (1803-ABT 1896), inspector of prisons, secretary of Post Office
7. William Howard Hill (26 Jul 1805-1805)
8. Sarah Hill (9 June 1807-12 June 1840)

[edit] References

1. ^ Nicolaus Tideman, Collective Decisions and Voting: The Potential for Public Choice, Ashgate Publishing Company, Burlington VT, 2006.
2. ^ Laws of the Society for Literary and Scientific Improvement; established in Birmingham, October the 19th, 1819.
3. ^ George Birbeck Hill, Life of Sir Rowland Hill and History of Penny Postage, Thos. de la Rue & Co, 110, Bunhill Row, London, 1880.
4. ^ Enid Lakeman, How Democracies Vote: A Study of Majority and Proportional Electoral Systems, Faber and Faber, 3ed, 1970.

[edit] Sources

• Science and Education: A Note - W. H. G. Armytage, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Dec., 1957), pp. 226-229
• JSTOR - British Journal of Educational Studies February 1980 (first page)

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