# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Hillary, William (1771-1847)

​HILLARY, Sir WILLIAM (1771–1847), founder of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, born in 1771 of an old Wensleydale family, was the second son of Richard Hillary, third but eventually only surviving son and heir of John Hillary of Birkrigg. His mother was Hannah, daughter of George Wynne. His elder brother Richard was a member of the House of Assembly in Jamaica, where he died unmarried in 1803.
William Hillary was appointed equerry to the Duke of Sussex, with whom he spent two years in Italy, returning to England in 1800; and, having come into large property both by marriage and inheritance, he, upon the renewal of the war with France in 1803, raised at his own expense, and many years commanded, the First Essex Legion of infantry and cavalry, amounting to 1,400 men, the largest force then offered by any private individual for the defence of his country. In this cause he expended over 20,000l., and, in consideration of this and other services, he was created a baronet on 8 Nov. 1805. Three years later, owing to a heavy loss of property in the West Indies, Sir William left Essex and settled at Fort Anne, near Douglas, in the Isle of Man. The large number of wrecks that he witnessed, culminating in 1822, when the government cutter Vigilance, the naval brig Racehorse, and many smaller vessels were destroyed off the Isle of Man, directed his attention to the question of saving life at ​ sea. In February 1823 he issued 'An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck,' which he dedicated to George IV. The proposal was taken up by George Hibbert and by Thomas Wilson, an influential city member, and on 4 March 1824 a public meeting was convened at, the London Tavern, under the chairmanship of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Manners-Sutton); the king, the royal dukes, the Archbishop of York, William Wilberforce, and other personages signified their approval of the movement, and the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck (since 1853 the Royal National Lifeboat Institution) was founded and established upon a permanent basis, with the Earl of Liverpool as first president.
Returning to the Isle of Man, Hillary established in 1826 a district association, of which he became president, and provided the four chief harbours of the island not only with lifeboats but also with the apparatus of Manby and Trengrouse.
Hillary frequently went out in the boats himself, and was instrumental in saving many lives. In December 1827, assisted by his son. he aided in saving seventeen men from the Swedish barque Fortroindet, and in the same year, at the expense of six ribs fractured, he took a prominent part in the saving of the crew of the St. George. On 29 Nov. 1830 he set out with a crew of fourteen volunteers and saved sixty-two persons (though he nearly lost his own life by being washed overboard), and gained the Shipwreck Institution's gold medal. In 1832 he planned the picturesque tower of refuge on St. Mary's, or Conister rock, in Douglas Bay. He established a sailors' home at Douglas, and was a strong advocate of the government building a breakwater and making a harbour of refuge in Douglas Bay. His last public act was to preside at a meeting held at Douglas to memorialise the government on this subject in March 1845, when he had to be carried from his residence at Fort Anne to the court house in a chair. Enfeebled in body, but full of mental vigour and public spirit to the last, he died at Woodville, near Douglas, on 5 Jan. 1847, and was buried in Douglas churchyard, 'followed to the grave by crowds who had witnessed his heroism and self-devotion in saving the life of the shipwrecked mariner.' He married, first, on 21 Feb. 1800, Elizabeth Disney, daughter and coheir of Lewis Disney Fytche of Danbury Place, Essex; secondly, on 30 Aug. 1813, Emma, daughter of Patrick Tobin of Kirkbradden in the Isle of Man. By his first wife he had twin children, born 19 Nov. 1800 : Augustus William, who succeeded as second baronet and died in 1854, when the baronetcy became extinct; and Elizabeth Mary, who married in 1818 Christopher Richard of Blackmore Priory, Essex. At the time of his death the institution which he had been instrumental in founding owned some twenty lifeboats and an annual income of 350l. Its prosperity languished for some years, but it was revived and thoroughly reorganised in 1849, and possesses now three hundred boats with a revenue of over 60,000l.
Hillary published several pamphlets, embodying ideas and schemes for the public benefit: 1. 'Suggestions for the Improvement and Embellishment of the Metropolis,' 1824. 2. A Sketch of Ireland in 1824 : the Sources of her Evils and their Remedies suggested,' 1825. 3. 'Suggestions for the Occupation of the Holy Land by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem,' 1841. 4. 'The National Importance of a great Central Harbour of Refuge for the Irish Sea at Douglas,' 1842 (a rifacimento of a tract which originally appeared at Douglas in 1826). All of these, as well as the Lifeboat 'Appeal,' went through several editions.
[Debrett's Baronetage, 1855; Lodge's Genealogy of the Peerage and Baronetage, 1859, p. 715 : Gent. Mag. 1847, i. 423; The Lifeboat, or Journal of the National Shipwreck Institution, July 1852; Times, 5 March 1825; Book of the Life-Boat, 1894, i. 160; Mundell's Stories of the Life-Boat, p. 15; Gattie's Memorials of the Goodwin Sands, 1890, p. 220; Harrison's Bibliotheca Monensis, 1876, 132, 137, 147, 149, 158, 164; Hillary's Pamphlets in British Museum Library.]
T. S.