Jack Hills (1867-1938), 1896 (b/w photo)

Rt Hon John Waller Hills, PC, MP, b. 2 Jan 1867, Belgrave Road, Pimlico, London, d. 24 Dec 1938, Palace Gardens Terrace, Kensington, London. Politician and angler, the second son of Herbert Augustus Hills of Highhead Castle, Cumberland, a barrister who was a judge of the International Court of Appeal, Cairo, until 1903, and his wife, Anna, daughter of William Robert Grove, the scientist and judge. He was educated at Eton College and at Balliol College, Oxford. He read for the bar, but was admitted a solicitor in 1897, when he became a partner in the firm Hills and Halsey. He married Stella, the eldest daughter of Herbert Duckworth. step-daughter of Leslie Stephens. Shortly after the marriage Stella was taken ill with peritonitis, and she died in July 1897. Hills made over the income on her marriage settlement to her half-sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. With Vanessa he developed a close relationship, though marriage was ruled out by her position as his deceased wife's sister, while to Virginia he was the subject of tart comment and an object of humour. He re-married in 1831, to Mary Grace Ashton who bore him a son, the future Sir Andrew Ashton Waller Hills.