George Lacy Hillier (6 June 1856 in

Sydenham Sydenham may refer to: Places Australia * Sydenham, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney ** Sydenham railway station, Sydney * Sydenham, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne ** Sydenham railway line, the name of the Sunbury railway line, Melbourne ...

- 11 February 1941 in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

) was an English racing cyclist, a pioneer of British cycling, and an excellent all-around athlete. He was one of the founders of the ''Chichester and District Motorcycle Club'', and served as its president. He was a member of other sports clubs and was racing secretary of the ''London County Cycling and Athletic Club''. As such, in 1891, he initiated the construction of the

Herne Hill Velodrome The Herne Hill Velodrome is a velodrome in Herne Hill, in south London. It is one of the oldest cycling tracks in the world, having been built in 1891. It hosted the track cycling events in the 1948 Summer Olympics and was briefly the home of Cry ...

in the south of London. In 1881 Hillier was a national cycling champion over various distances. In 1885 he traveled to Leipzig, won a ten kilometer race against the German champion John Pundt, and set a new record on the track. For a prize, Hillier received a tape with a silver-plated cutlery and a medal. Hillier wrote several books including the 500 page ''Cycling'' for the

Badminton Library The ''Badminton Library'', called in full ''The Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes'', was a sporting and publishing project conceived by Longmans Green & Co. and edited by Henry Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort (1824–1899). Between 1885 a ...

with

William Keppel, 7th Earl of Albemarle Lieutenant-colonel William Coutts Keppel, 7th Earl of Albemarle, , MP, ADC (15 April 1832 - 28 August 1894), styled Viscount Bury between 1851 and 1891, was a British soldier and politician. He served in the British Army before entering Parliame ...

, in 1887. In the 1892 ''Cyclist'' annual and yearbook Hillier set out a history of the cycling Hour record in which he identified Frederick Lindley Dodds of Stockton-on-Tees, who was then a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, as having set the first Hour record, on March 25, 1876, stating that "Dodds probably covered 15 miles and about 1,480 yards in the hour." Later Hillier continued to work as a writer and journalist, as well as on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

, like his father before him. His grave is located in London at the Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery.

Writings

*''Ease in The Art of Cycling - The Art of Train Irens for Radwettfahren'' with THS Walker, Berlin 1888 *''Cycling'', The Badminton Library, London, 1887, with William Keppel, 7th Earl of Albemarle *''Cycles - Past and Present'', Edinburgh 1892 *''All about cycling'', London 1896 *''Wrinkles for Cyclists'', London 1898 *''The Potterers Club, a cycling novel'' Gale and Polden Ltd. circa 1895

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hiller, George Lacy 1856 births 1941 deaths People from Sydenham, London English male cyclists English male journalists English writers