{{Short description|English zoologist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2018}} '''John Edwards Hill''' (11 June 1928 – 6 May 1997) was a British mammalogist who described 24 species and 26 subspecies during his career.
==Early life and education== Hill was born on 11 June 1928 in the small hamlet of Colemans Hatch in East Sussex, England. He was the only child of Marjorie Edwards and her husband Albert Hill. He attended East Grinstead Grammar School on scholarship. During World War II, his father worked as a gardener and his mother worked as a housekeeper. Hill finished Grammar School after the war in 1946 at eighteen years old.<ref name="Jenkins 1997">{{cite journal|doi=10.1515/mamm.1997.61.2.287|last=Jenkins|first=P.|title=John Edwards Hill, 1928-1997 - an appreciation|journal=Mammalia|volume=61|issue=2|year=1997|pages=287–290 }}</ref>
==Career== After finishing school, Hill joined the Air Ministry's Meteorological Office as a Meteorological Assistant. He then served in the Royal Air Force for two years as a Meteorological Assistant, during which he traveled to Japan, Singapore, and the Nicobar Islands. In 1948, he began working as an Assistant Experimental Officer at the British Museum (Natural History)'s Department of Zoology. He retired from the Museum 40 years later in 1988. From 1974 to his death in 1997, Hill was on the editorial board of the journal ''Mammalia''.<ref name="Jenkins 1997"/>
Hill was well-regarded for his work with bats; Australian mammalogist Tim Flannery referred to him as a "bat expert."<ref name="Flannery 2012">{{cite book|last=Flannery| first= T.| year=2012| title= Among the islands: adventures in the Pacific| publisher= Open Road + Grove/Atlantic|isbn=9780802194046}}</ref> He described a number of bat species, including Kitti's hog-nosed bat.<ref name="Hill 1974">{{cite journal|last=Hill| first= J. E.| year=1974| title= A new family, genus and species of bat (Mammalia, Chiroptera) from Thailand| journal=Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History)|url=https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2261665|volume=27| pages= 303–336| doi= 10.5962/bhl.part.22980| doi-access=free}}</ref> He also published major revisions of several bat genera, including ''Hipposideros'', ''Philetor'', ''Laephotis'', ''Scotoecus'', ''Hesperoptenus'', ''Mystacina'', as well as the mouse-tailed bat family, Rhinopomatidae.<ref name="Jenkins 1997"/>
Altogether, Hill described 24 new species of mammal and 26 subspecies. Of that total, 13 were rodents and 37 were bats.<ref name="Beolens 2009"/>
==Awards and honors== In 1985, the American Society of Mammalogists elected Hill as an honorary member.<ref name="ASM">{{cite web|url=https://www.mammalsociety.org/committees/honorary-membership/honorary-membership-award-winners|title=Elected Honorary Members|website=American Society of Mammalogists|access-date=6 December 2018|archive-date=13 August 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220813101228/http://www.mammalsociety.org/committees/honorary-membership/honorary-membership-award-winners|url-status=dead}}</ref> Several species of mammal are named after Hill, including the Hills' horseshoe bat, Hill's sheath-tailed bat, Hill's roundleaf bat, ''Sturnira koopmanhilli'', and Hill's shrew.<ref name="Beolens 2009">{{cite book| last1=Beolens| first1= B.| last2= Watkins| first2= M.| last3= Grayson| first3= M.| date=2009| title= The eponym dictionary of mammals| publisher= JHU Press| pages=189–190|isbn=9780801895333}}</ref><ref name="mccarthy 2006">{{cite journal|doi=10.2992/0097-4463(2006)75[97:ANSOCS]2.0.CO;2| last1=McCarthy| first1= T. J.| last2= Albuja| first2= L.| last3= Alberico| first3= M. S.| year=2006| title= A new species of chocoan Sturnira (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae: Stenodermatinae) from western Ecuador and Colombia| journal= Annals of Carnegie Museum| volume= 75| issue=2| pages= 97–111| s2cid=86259761| url=http://bibdigital.epn.edu.ec/handle/15000/4751}}</ref>
==Selected publications== *{{cite book|last1=Hill|first1=J. E.|last2=Smith|first2=J. D.|year=1984|title=Bats: A Natural History|publisher=University of Texas Press|isbn=9780292707528|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/batsnaturalhisto0000unse}} *{{cite book|last1=Corbet| first1= G. B.| last2= Hill| first2= J. E.| year=1980| title= A world list of mammalian species|publisher=Comstock Pub. Associates|isbn=9780801412608}} *{{cite journal|last1=Hill| first1= J. E.|year=1990| title= A memoir and bibliography of Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas, FRS|journal=Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History)|url=https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4126598|volume=18}}
==Personal life and death== Hill married Brenda Morphew in 1955; they had a daughter, Sandra. He died on 6 May 1997.<ref name="Jenkins 1997"/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, John Edwards}} Category:1928 births Category:1997 deaths Category:British mammalogists Category:People from Hartfield Category:20th-century British zoologists