Friends of Coughton Court

"What was Rowland Hill famous for?" the group were asked at their latest meeting. The unanimous reply came back, "The Penny Black". True, but as Alan Godfrey, local historian went on to tell us, Rowland Hill was an amazing and inventive pioneer and the postal service was only one of the innovations in many fields for which he was responsible.

He was born in 1795 in Kidderminster, the third son of Thomas Wright Hill, who was himself a remarkable man from a very talented family. Thomas Hill started a school which concentrated on "moral training and virtues of the heart". The school had a very wide curriculum and there was, unusually for those days, no corporal punishment. A committee of the boys was set up to judge the misdemeanours of their fellow pupils.

In 1807 Rowland Hill became a pupil teacher at the school. He also worked at the Birmingham Assay office.

He later set up a second school and in 1826, a third one for which he designed the building, incorporating central heating and a swimming pool. This became a very popular boarding school.

He retired as a teacher aged 38 to pursue wider political and social interests