Arnold Hills

Arnold Frank Hills (12 March 1857 – 7 March 1927) was an English businessman, sportsman, philanthropist, and activist. He played once for the England national football team in 1879. Hills was an advocate of temperance and vegetarianism, and served as president of the London Vegetarian Society and Vegetarian Federal Union.

Biography

Early life Hills was born in Denmark Hill, Surrey, on 12 March 1857, the son of Frank Clarke Hills, a manufacturing chemist, and Ann Ellen Hills .

Sports career Hills was a British mile champion, winning the 1878 AAC Championships title, and was the three-mile champion in 1879.

In his youth, he played football and cricket for Harrow School, where he captained the first XI. After leaving Harrow, he attended University College, Oxford, where he earned a B.A. in 1880 He also caused resentment during a strike over pay and working conditions by employing strikebreakers.

In the summer of 1895, Hills and Dave Taylor helped found Thames Ironworks F.C., which later became West Ham United. The following year, 1896, he became the Managing Director of the yard, and at some point Chairman. He founded the Oriolet Fruitarian Hospital at Loughton, under the medical direction of Josiah Oldfield.

In an article titled "Milk and Eggs", Hills described milk, cream, butter, cheese, and eggs as "props of a transition period" rather than part of the vegetarian ideal. He argued that milk and eggs were foods naturally intended for young animals and human infants, and that adults should move beyond them. He criticised the use of milk, cream, butter, and especially cheese on physiological grounds, claiming that cheese was made indigestible by fermentation. Hills also rejected eggs as less digestible when cooked, and said that reliance on milk and eggs was justified only by social convenience. He urged vegetarian "experimentalists" to replace them with fruit, nuts, and grains.

In 1892, Hills authored Vital Food, in which he argued for a plant-based raw food diet.

Later life and death The failing fortunes of the ironworks and Hills's involvement in developing a new car engine pushed the club into the background, and he became disabled due to arthritis. He died at Hammerfield, Penshurst, Kent, in 1927, aged 69, and was buried at St Luke's Church at Chiddingstone Causeway in Penshurst.

Legacy Charles W. Forward's 1898 history of vegetarianism, Fifty Years of Food Reform, was dedicated to Hills.

In 2014, as part of its preparations for moving to the Olympic Stadium, West Ham announced that one of its corporate entertainment areas would be a private dining club named the Arnold Hills suite.

Publications Vital Food (1892) Vegetarian Essays (1897) Essays on Vegetarianism (1910)