Reginald Leslie Hine

Reginald Leslie Hine (25 September 1883 – 14 April 1949) was a solicitor and historian whose writings centred on the market-town of Hitchin in Hertfordshire and its environs. He ended his life in 1949 by jumping in front of a train at Hitchin railway station when facing disciplinary proceedings from The Law Society.

Early years Hine was born in 1883 at Newnham Hall near Baldock in Hertfordshire, the son of Alderman Joseph Neville Hine (1849–1931), a tenant farmer, and his wife Eliza Taylor (1843–1892). Hine was educated at Grove House in Baldock, was privately tutored by the Revd George Todd of Baldock, and attended Kent College in Canterbury and The Leys School in Cambridge.

Minsden Chapel T.W. Latchmore's hoax photograph of the Minsden ghost (1907) In 1907 Hine and two others, the Hitchin photographer Thomas William Latchmore (1882–1946) and the artist and etcher F. L. Griggs, took a camera to Minsden Chapel with the intention of photographing the ghost of a monk who it was believed had been murdered there and whose spirit was said to emerge from the stone walls of the ruined chapel. Hine claimed that they had been successful and published the resulting photograph in his The History of Hitchin. The photograph is now accepted as having been a practical joke at best, and a hoax at worst.

Hine frequently visited the chapel, and eventually obtained a lifetime lease from the vicars of Hitchin. So fond of the building was he, that he even bade "trespassers and sacrilegious persons take warning, for I will proceed against them with the utmost rigour of the law, and, after my death and burial, I will endeavour, in all ghostly ways, to protect and haunt its hallowed walls".

Solicitor and historian Hine studied law and became an articled clerk aged 18, working for the long-established firm of Hawkins and Company of Hitchin, but despite his claims to the contrary he did not qualify as a solicitor until he was 50 in 1933. He then went into partnership with local solicitor Reginald Hartley, and for the remaining 16 years of his life practised with the firm of Hartley and Hine until his sudden retirement on 31 March 1949, just two weeks before his death.

Historian W. G. Hoskins described Hine's The History of Hitchin as "first class", while Professor G. M. Trevelyan said "I have nothing but admiration for the method, plan and style of it". However, others were not so enthusiastic about Hine's works, questioning his use of sources and historical accuracy, further claiming that Hine would often stretch the facts to make a good story. At the time of his death Hine faced being struck off as a solicitor for professional misconduct, having contacted both sides in a divorce case contrary to Law Society rules. He left behind 60 boxes of material for his planned History of Hertfordshire.

Hine was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 19 April 1949, at the same time that his memorial service was being held at St Mary's Church in Hitchin. His ashes were scattered at Minsden Chapel.

After death Hine's last book, Relics of an Uncommon Attorney, a collection of his later writings, was published posthumously by his friend Richenda Scott.

A biography, The Ghosts of Reginald Hine: An Uncommon Attorney, by Richard Whitmore, was published in 2007.