Reginald Hill was initially apprenticed to a silversmith, before discovering his flare for silver design as a student at the Central School of Arts and Crafts.
In 1939, still at the beginning of his career, such was the high regard in which Hill’s designs were held, that he was commissioned to design the Ascot Gold Cup for Elkington. After WWII Hill combined teaching at the Central School of Arts and Crafts with his own Design work, notable commissions including presentation dishes for the Bank of England in 1946 and an 18-carat gold communion set, commissioned in 1958 by the Duke of Edinburgh as a gift to the Archbishop of Canterbury following the coronation of Elizabeth II.
Student testimonies illustrate the warm regard and respect in which Hill, or ‘Reggie’ was held, described by one as ‘a brilliant educationalist, a fantastic designer, a gentleman and a gem of a man’, amongst other glowing reports.
His most renowned pupil was Christopher Lawrence, then an apprentice at C J Vanders Silversmith, a firm for whom Hill designed numerous pieces. Lawrence lauded him as ‘the leading designer from the late 1940s, the 1950s and to some degree the 1960s’.
