Edmond Herbert Grove-Hills

Colonel Edmond Herbert Hills CMG CBE FRS (1 August 1864 – 2 October 1922), surnamed Grove-Hills from 1920-22, was a British military engineer, surveyor and astronomer.

He produced the maps that were used by British forces during the Boer War (1899-1902), and arbitrated on the border between Argentina and Chile (1902). He retired from the army in 1905, but was recalled to serve on the home front during the First World War (1914-1918).

Hills had an interest in scientific matters, becoming a fellow of the Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). He was particularly interested in total solar eclipses, and took part in several expeditions to obtain scientific observations of them. He was President of the RAS from 1913-15. Hills collected an extensive library of rare books, which he donated to the RAS in his will.

Family and personal life He was born on 1 August 1864 at High Head Castle, Cumberland. His parents were Herbert Augustus Hills and Anna Hills (née Grove). Herbert was a judge and Anna was the daughter of the scientist and judge William Robert Grove.

In 1899 he was transferred to the Royal School of Military Engineering at Chatham, where he taught chemistry and photography.

In 1902, Hills was the secretary of the British tribunal that arbitrated on the disputed border between Chile and Argentina.

Hills retired from the army around 1905,

He took part in several total eclipse expeditions, observing those of August 1896 (in Japan) and of January 1898 (in India).

He became a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1903.

He was elected as President of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1912, serving in that position from 1913 to 1915.

Hills set out on another eclipse expedition, to observe the August 1914 eclipse from Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire. The goal was to record spectra of the chromosphere using a high-resolution slit-less spectrograph attached to a heliostat. In his will, Grove-Hills donated this library to the Royal Astronomical Society, where it now forms the Grove-Hills Collection.