David Hill (businessman)

Born out of wedlock in Eastbourne in 1946, into an impoverished family of four boys, Hill and his twin brother spent time in Barnardo's children's home in Barkingside.

{{quotation|I can only remember it as traumatic. The idea of nurturing and care and affection and love just didn't enter the equation back in those days. I can remember Mum gave us some coloured writing paper so we could write to her. I remember the other kids stealing our paper, humiliating us, tearing it up and running away. It was only much later I realised a lot of this cruelty was that most of them didn't have anybody to write to.|David Hill, interviewed in 2008.}}

Hill's early years of schooling were at Bourne Junior Primary School. He migrated to Australia together with his elder brother and twin brother in April 1959, aboard the SS Strathaird. His mother arrived in Australia a few years later.{{cite web |url=http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/belongings/david-hill/ |title=David Hill |work=Belongings: Post WWII migration memories and journeys |publisher=Migration Heritage Centre of New South Wales |first=Andrea |last=Fernandes |date=14 November 2008 |access-date=15 March 2014 }} Prior to departing England, Hill and his brothers had enrolled to attend Fairbridge Farm School in Molong in the Central West region of New South Wales.

Hill has since written a book about the experiences of the child migrants. The documentary The Long Journey Home was aired on ABC TV on 17 November 2009, detailing some of the history associated with Fairbridge Farm School and other orphanages of that time. He also became a passionate and effective advocate for British and Australian government recognition that child migrants had been poorly treated.Cannane, Steve. "[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-27/british-government-knew-fairbridge-farms-were-unfit-for-children/8306144 British Government knew Fairbridge farms were unfit for children, documents show]". ABC News, 27 February 2017.

Prior to his rise to prominence in business circles, Hill was variously a hardware shop assistant, a sandwich cutter, a labourer on building sites, a refuse collector and gardener; he sold tennis coaching courses, worked as a barman, waiter, pub bouncer, delivery agent, tutor at the University of Sydney, journalist, investment bank worker, an accountant, and was in charge of the NSW Government Ministerial Advisory Unit.

Having in 1978 been appointed an Associate Commissioner of the Public Transport Commission in 1982, at 36 years of age, Hill was appointed as the chief executive of the State Rail Authority, serving until 1987.Appointment of Associate Commissioner Railway Digest January 1979 page 7 He remained as a director of the State Rail Authority until 1997. Hill served as chairman and managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from 1987 to 1995,Fidler, Richard [http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2007/05/14/1922409.htm Director David Hill] at ABC, 14 May 2007 head of Soccer Australia, chairman of Sydney Water,{{cite news |url=https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/16791 |title=David Hill: from Giardia to Labor MP? |work=Green Left Weekly |author1=Francis, Geoff |author2=Hicks, Peter |date=16 September 1998 |access-date=16 March 2014 }} director of the Australian National Airlines Commission and Chairman of CREATE, a national organisation responsible for representing the interests of young people and children in institutional care. A former North Sydney rugby league junior, Hill was president of the North Sydney Bears Rugby League Football Club between 1989 and 1992. He was instrumental in the eventual ban on cigarette sponsorship of the game.

Hill is strongly in favour of the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece. As well as being a member of the British Marbles Reunited campaign, he is the founder and current chairman of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures.

He was an unsuccessful political candidate representing Labor for the Division of Hughes at the 1998 federal election.{{cite web |author=Carr, Adam |url=http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/a/australia/1998/1998repsnsw.txt |title=Hughes: New South Wales |work=Australian House of Representatives: Voting by constituency at the 1998 Australian Legislative election|publisher=Psephos |date=3 October 1998 |access-date=16 March 2014 }}

Hill has written a number of non-fiction books on Australian history, including histories of the First Fleet, early colonial New South Wales, and the Australian gold rushes.

Hill married Stergitsa Zamagias in 1998,{{cite interview |last=Hill |first=David |interviewer=Peter Thompson |title=David Hill |type=Interview transcript|url=http://www.abc.net.au/tv/talkingheads/txt/s2487200.htm |work=Talking Heads |publisher=ABC TV |date=9 February 2009 |access-date=15 March 2014 }} and together they have a son.{{cite news |author=Marr, David |author-link=David Marr (journalist) |url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/no-adjectives-good-enough-for-hill/2008/09/28/1222540247013.html?page=fullpage |title=Yet another chapter, but still no adjectives good enough for Hill |work=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=29 September 2008 |access-date=15 March 2014 }} They live in Sydney.

• {{cite book |last=Hill |first=David |year=2007 |title=The Forgotten Children: Fairbridge Farm School and Its Betrayal of Britain's Child Migrants to Australia |publisher=Random House |location=Australia |isbn=978-1-74166-614-4 |ref=DH01 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/forgottenchildre0000hill }}
• {{cite book |last=Hill |first=David |year=2008 |title=1788: The Brutal Truth of the First Fleet |publisher=Random House |location=Australia |isbn=978-1-74166-797-4 |ref=DH01}}
• {{cite book |last=Hill |first=David |year=2010 |title=Gold - The fever that forever changed Australia |publisher=Random House |location=Australia |isbn=978-1-74166-925-1 |ref=DH01}}
• {{cite book |last=Hill |first=David |year=2013 |title=The Great Race: The Race Between the English and the French to Complete the Map of Australia |publisher=Random House |location=Australia |isbn=9781742751108 |ref=DH01}}
• {{cite book |last=Hill |first=David |year=2014 |title=The Making of Australia|publisher=William Heinemann |location=Australia |isbn=9781742757667|ref=DH01}}
• {{cite book|last1=Hill|first1=David|title=First Fleet Surgeon : The Voyage of Arthur Bowes Smyth|date=2015|publisher=National Library of Australia|location=Canberra, ACT|isbn=9780642278623}}
• {{cite book |last=Hill |first=David |year=2015 |title=Australia and The Monarchy|publisher=William Heinemann |location=Australia |isbn= 9780857987549 |ref=DH01}}
• {{cite book|last1=Hill|first1=David|title=The Fair and the Foul : Inside Our Sporting Nation|date=2017|publisher=Penguin Random House Australia|location=North Sydney|isbn=9780857987570}}
• {{cite book|last1=Hill|first1=David|title=Convict Colony: The Remarkable Story of the Fledgling Settlement That Survived Against the Odds|date=2019|publisher=Allen & Unwin|location=Australia|isbn=9781760528669}}
• {{Cite book |last=Hill |first=David |title=Reckoning : The forgotten children and their quest for justice |date=2022 |publisher=William Heinemann Australia |isbn=978-1-76104-552-3 |location=Australia}}

{{Reflist}}

{{s-start}}

{{s-media}}

{{s-bef

| before = Ken Myer

}}

{{s-ttl

| title = Chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

| years = 1986–1987

}}

{{s-aft

| after = Bob Somervaille

}}

{{s-bef

| before = Geoffrey Whitehead

}}

{{s-ttl

| title = Managing Director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

| years = 1987–1995

}}

{{s-aft

| after = Brian Johns

}}

{{s-gov}}

{{s-bef|before= John McMurtrie }}

{{s-ttl|title=Chairman of Sydney Water Corporation|years=1997{{ndash}}1998}}

{{s-aft|after= Gabrielle Kibble }}

{{end}}

{{ABCBoard |state=autocollapse}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, David}}

Category:Chairpersons of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Category:1946 births

Category:Living people

Category:Australian chief executives

Category:Managing directors of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Category:Australian human rights activists

Category:Australian historians

Category:English emigrants to Australia

Category:Australian people of Scottish descent

Category:Australian maritime historians

Category:Sydney Water

Category:Elgin Marbles