Rowland Hill A.M. (23 August 1744 – 11 April 1833) was a popular English preacher, enthusiastic evangelical and an influential advocate of smallpox vaccination. He was founder and resident pastor of a wholly independent chapel, the Surrey Chapel, London; chairman of the Religious Tract Society; and a keen supporter of the British and Foreign Bible Society and the London Missionary Society. The famous instigator of penny postage, Rowland Hill, is said to have been christened 'Rowland' after him.
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Early life
Rowland Hill was born at Hawkstone Park (11 miles from Shrewsbury), Shropshire, 23 August 1744, the sixth son of Sir Rowland Hill, 1st Baronet (died 1783), he was educated at Shrewsbury School, Eton College and at St John's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1769), where he came under the influence of the Methodists. For preaching in the open air in and around Cambridge without a licence, Hill was opposed by the authorities and frequently assaulted by mobs. Finally, in 1773, after he had been refused ordination into the Church of England by six bishops, he was ordained by the bishop of Bath and Wells and offered the curacy of Kingston in Somerset, but was subsequently denied priest's orders and continued his vocation as an independent or nonconformist.