Richard William Hiley

Richard William Hiley was born in Leeds in 1824. He was the son of Richard Hiley and the brother of Alfred Hiley - see previous posts. 

He entered St Mary Hall in the University of Oxford and graduated with a B.A. in 1852 and an M.A. the following year. He taught at the Liverpool Collegiate Institute, was ordained Deacon and licenced to the curacy of St Luke's, and then ordained Priest in 1854.

In 1861 he bought Thorparch Grange, a school with 41 boys aged 10 to 17, from his father. Two years later he succeeded his father-in-law as Vicar of  the nearby village of Wighill, appointing his brother Alfred as curate. In 1885 he became a Doctor of Divinity and a Bachelor of Divinity. He retired from Thorparch in 1891 after 30 years as Principal, and retired as Vicar of Wighill in 1910 after 47 years in that post.

Richard William married Isabella Jessop in 1861 and the couple had 9 children. He died at Boston Spa in 1912 and was buried in the churchyard at Wighill. 

Like his father, Richard William wrote a number of books, including three volumes of  'A Year's Sermons', based upon some of the Scriptures for each Sunday morning, and an autobiography 'Memories of Half a Century'.

Obituary in The Birmingham Post

In his autobiography Richard William stated that his father's ancestors came from Poole in Dorset and that one of them entertained King Charles. Previous posts have featured the 'Poole Hileys' but there is still no confirmation as to where this connection lies.

Richard Hiley

Another post in the occasional series on Notable Hileys.....

The post of 28th September 2020 featured Alfred Hiley (1831-1910), a clergyman, Mathematics teacher and writer of text books. Alfred was the son of Richard Hiley (1798-1872).

Richard Hiley

Richard was born in Hunslet near Leeds and went to Leeds Grammar School. He never went on to have the benefit of a university education but opened and ran a number of his own schools in Leeds, and in 1855 built and opened Thorp Arch Grange School, near Wetherby, which he sold to his son Richard William in 1861.

Richard was a prolific author writing over 30 educational books between 1831 and 1872. The books were published by Longmans and covered a wide range of subjects including Latin Grammar, Arithmetic, Geography, English Grammar and Composition and History. The title page of one of his English books is shown below.

Richard married three times and had a total of nine children including Alfred, see above, and Richard William, who features in the next post. He retired to Scarborough and then moved to Doncaster where he died in 1872.