Location: National Portrait Gallery, London, Great Britain
Date: 1780
Medium: Pastel
Dimensions: 12.2 x 9.8 inches
You can find more information on National Portrait Gallery website here.
Rowland Hill (1744–1833) was an influential evangelical preacher and close friend of the portraitist John Russell. Educated at Shrewsbury, Eton, and St. John’s College, Cambridge, he embraced Methodism early on, delivering open-air sermons despite official opposition. Though ordained as a curate in Somerset in 1773, he was refused priest’s orders.
After inheriting property, Hill built the independent Surrey Chapel in London in 1783, serving as its resident pastor while remaining in the Anglican communion. On nationwide preaching tours, he attracting crowds of up to 20,000.
At Surrey Chapel, Hill established thirteen Sunday schools for over 3,000 children, almshouses, and societies to support impoverished women and girls. A major force in religious philanthropy, he helped found the London Missionary Society, the Religious Tract Society, and the British and Foreign Bible Society.
Hill was also a pioneer of the smallpox vaccination and a close friend of Dr. Edward Jenner. In 1806, he published a tract defending inoculation and opened a clinic at his chapel that vaccinated thousands of children. Additionally, he was a successful author and his published a popular work of fiction, Village Dialogues (1801).
