Richard Hill (historian)

Richard Leslie Hill (born 18th February 1901 at Ramsbury ( Wiltshire ); d. 21st March 1996 in Oxford ) was a British historian , the pioneering work on the history of the Sudan made in the 19th century. He was the founder of the Sudan Archives in Durham .

Life

Richard Hill spent the early years of his childhood in Ramsbury. In 1913 his family emigrated to New Zealand . When his intention to join the Australian Army did not materialize after completing school , he returned to England and enrolled first at St Augustine's College in Canterbury and later at St Edmund Hall College at the University of Oxford , where he heard history and participated in 1926 the Bachelor of Letters graduated. From 1927 to 1945 Hill worked in various positions at Sudan Railways in the British administration of Sudan and then taught at the University College of Khartoum History of the Middle East until 1949 . From 1949 to 1966 he was a lecturer in Middle Eastern history at Durham University , during which time he held visiting professorships at the University of California, Santa Barbara , Simon Fraser University, and Ahmadu Bello University . Hill spent his retirement in Oxford.

Services

Like Harold MacMichael , Anthony John Arkell and PM Holt , Hill belonged to the generation of British historians who developed their scholarly interest in Sudan while serving as administrative officials there. Hill was the author of several works that still form standard reference works on the history of modern Sudan: These include the Bibliography of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan published in 1939, which first listed sources on the history of Sudan, and the publication A Biographical Dictionary published in 1951 of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan , a biographical encyclopedia of historical figures in Sudan. Hill was editor and partly translator of occasionally rare travel and experience reports about the Sudan of the 19th century. In 1957 he founded the Sudan Archive at Durham University to collect documents that were in the private possession of former officials after the dissolution of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan . Hill was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by Durham University in 1991 for his research .

Publications (selection)

As an author

• Bibliography of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from the Earliest Times to 1937 (1939)
• A Biographical Dictionary of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1951); Revised edition: A Biographical Dictionary of the Sudan (1967)
• Egypt in the Sudan, 1820−1881 (1959)
• Sudan Transport, a History of Railway, Marine and River services in the Republic of the Sudan (1965)
• Slatin Pasha (1965)
• (together with Peter C. Hogg) A Black Corps d'Élite: An Egyptian Sudanese conscript battalion with the French Army in Mexico, 1863−1867, and its survivors in subsequent African history (1995)

As editor

• On the Frontiers of Islam: Two Manuscripts concerning the Sudan under Turco-Egyptian Rule, 1822-1845 (1970)
• (with Elias Toniolo) The Opening of the Nile Basin: Writings by members of the Catholic Missions to Central Africa on the geography and ethnography of the Sudan, 1842−1881 (1974)
• The Europeans in the Sudan, 1834-1878. Some manuscripts, mostly unpublished, written by traders, Christian missionaries, officials, and others. (1980)
• The Sudan Memoirs of Carl Christian Giegler Pasha, 1873-1883 (1984)

literature

• Gabriel Warburg: Richard Hill (1901-1996): In Memoriam , JSTOR 4283862 . In: Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Jan. 1997), pp. 193-195.
• R [ex] S [eán] O'Fahey: Richard Leslie Hill 1901-1996 , JSTOR 25653295 . In: Sudanic Africa 8 (1997), pp. 1-15. (contains a detailed bibliography)
• M [artin] W [illiam] Daly: Introduction . In: MW Daly (ed.): Modernization in the Sudan, Essays in Honor of Richard Hill, Lilian Barber Press, New York 1985, pp. 7-13.

Web links

• Nicolas Barker: Richard Hill: Obituary , April 3, 1996.