ALFRED HILL’S BROTHER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 5, 14 March 1947, Page 3

ALFRED HILL’S BROTHER

STILL SINGS WELL AT 87 ONCE ACHIEVED FAME AS BOY SOPRANO A recent visitor to Wellington was Mr Edward J. (“Teddy”) Hill, of Auckland. Mr Hill, now 87 years of age, was for more than half a century Wellington’s leading tenor. He still sings a good song and still plays bowls with the best. He is remembered in Wellington as a man of tireless energy in anything concerning music. Mr Hill was one of five sons of the late Mr Charles Hill. The five were E. J. Alfred (the gifted composer and conductor), William (still resident in Wellington), and the late John W., and Charles Hill (flautist). Edward J. had achieved some small fame in Auckland as a boy soprano, but it was not until the family shifted to Wellington that he developed into a fine tenor. One of his first acts, after the family had settled there was to join the choir of

the Taranaki Street Wesley Church, which choir, with such singers as John Prouse, and Harriet Randell made musical history in Wellington, whilst, from the pulpit, the Rev. Leonard Isitt (later a member of the Legislative Council), fascinated crowded congregations with his powers of oratorv.

Young Mr Hill soon made his presence and voice felt in the community. It was not long before he was in the liveliest demand for concerts, and oratorio, being always reliable and vocally more than satisfactory. Mr Hill’s career in amateur opera is another page in his life. He gave excellent performances in “The Gondoliers,” “Dorothy,” “lolanthe,” “The Mikado,” “Princess Ida,” and, best of all in “Ruddigore,” in which opera (a burlesque on melodrama), he played the sailor hero. Mr Hill was also a popular member of.the Wellington Savage Club, and, as member of ex-president of the Wellington Bowling Club, he made a name for himself, not only on the green, but at many hundreds of social functions connected with the game all over New Zealand. Mr Hill had two sisters. One of them is Mrs Mclndoe, of Dunedin (at present in Scotland), who is the mother of one of the most famous plastic surgeons in the world.