Arnold Hills

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Arnold Frank Hills played just once for England, in a 5-4 win over Scotland on the 5th of April 1879 at the Kennington Oval. That single cap is a footnote compared to everything else he did. Hills was born on the 12th of March 1857 in Denmark Hill, Surrey, the son of a manufacturing chemist. By the time he died in 1927, he had founded a football club that became West Ham United, led two vegetarian organisations, started a periodical, built a hospital, and won a British mile championship. What drove a shipyard boss to live among his workers in a small house in Canning Town? Why did he walk away from West Ham United after pouring money into it? And how did the young Mahatma Gandhi end up serving on a committee alongside him?

• 2. Scholar and Athlete

  ›

  At Harrow School, Hills captained the cricket first XI and played football, building a sporting reputation that carried into university. He went on to University College, Oxford, earning a B.A. in 1880 and two football blues. Playing as a forward for Oxford University, he was part of the team that finished runners-up to Wanderers in the 1877 FA Cup Final. His running was just as formidable as his football. He won the AAC Championships mile title in 1878 and claimed the three-mile championship in 1879. After Oxford, he continued playing as an amateur for Old Harrovians and received a Corinthian's Cap while with the club. His brief international appearance, the 5-4 victory over Scotland, came in that same year of 1879, representing the peak of a sports career that ran across athletics, football, and cricket.

• 3. The Shipyard Boss

  ›

  Thames Iron Works had been a London shipbuilding business since 1846 when Hills took it over as managing director. Rather than manage from a distance, he chose to live for five years among his workforce in a small house on East India Dock Road in Canning Town. He organised recreational centres for the workers who surrounded him. His tenure was not without conflict: during a strike over pay and working conditions, he employed strikebreakers, a decision that caused lasting resentment. In the summer of 1895, Hills and Dave Taylor helped found Thames Ironworks F.C. as a club for the local community. He rented the Memorial Grounds to the club on favourable terms and encouraged business associates, family members, and workers to invest in the venture. His promise to buy one share for every share sold to the public signalled genuine financial commitment, not mere patronage.

• 4. A Club Held at Arm's Length

  ›

  Hills proposed that West Ham be formed as a limited company and became its largest single shareholder, holding 1,100 of 4,000 shares. Despite that position, he told the new directors he would not interfere in the running of the club. He did not attend annual general meetings, did not ask to address them, and presented no demands or suggestions. He financially supported the club until April 1900. After disagreements with West Ham's board over professionalism, he ended his formal ties with both the club and the Thames Ironworks. The failing fortunes of the ironworks and his work developing a new car engine had already begun pushing the club to the margins of his life. When Hills died in 1927, his 1,100 shares passed to his family; a separate block of 1,142 shares remained unsold until 1961.

• 5. The Vegetarian Campaign

  ›

  Hills was the first president of the London Vegetarian Society, which was founded in 1888. Serving on its executive committee alongside him was a young Mahatma Gandhi. Hills also became the first president of the Vegetarian Cycling and Athletic Club and president of the London Vegetarian Rambling Club. He founded The Vegetarian, an independent periodical, to spread the cause. In 1889 he established the Vegetarian Federal Union and served as its president as well. He argued for a plant-based raw food diet in his 1892 book Vital Food, one of three published works on vegetarianism alongside Vegetarian Essays in 1897 and Essays on Vegetarianism in 1910. He also founded the Oriolet Fruitarian Hospital at Loughton, placing it under the medical direction of Josiah Oldfield. Charles W. Forward's 1898 history of vegetarianism, Fifty Years of Food Reform, was dedicated to Hills, a marker of how central he was to the movement.

• 6. Death and Remembrance

  ›

  Arthritis eventually disabled Hills, narrowing the life of a man who had once been a British mile champion. He died on the 7th of March 1927 at Hammerfield, Penshurst, Kent, five days short of his seventieth birthday, and was buried at St Luke's Church in Penshurst. Nearly ninety years later, in 2014, West Ham United announced that one of its corporate entertainment areas at the Olympic Stadium would be named the Arnold Hills Suite, a private dining club bearing his name. The club he co-founded in 1895 with Dave Taylor had become one of English football's enduring institutions, and the suite is the most visible acknowledgment the club has given to the man who paid for its earliest years.