HILDILID, Saint (fl. 700), abbess of Barking, was, according to the legendary life of Erkenwald or Earconwald [q. v.], bishop of London, of foreign origin, and Reyner has inferred from this that she came from Chelles (Apost. Bened. pp. 64–5). Earconwald is said to have engaged her to instruct his sister Ethelburga [q. v.], abbess of the monastery which he had founded at Barking. Hildilid succeeded her pupil as abbess at some date later than 692, if we accept the charter of Æthelred to Æthelburga given under that date (Kemble, Codex Dipl. i. 39). According to another account it must have been after the death of Earconwald (693), who died on a visit to his sister. Florence of Worcester, however, gives her accession under 664, but again mentions it under 675 (i. 27, 33). Bede speaks of Hildilid's long rule, of her translation of the bones of saints into the church of St. Mary, and of a miraculous cure of a blind man which took place in her time (Hist. Eccl. iv. 10). St. Boniface, writing to Eadburga, abbess of Minster, in 717 or 718, mentions Hildilid as the authority on which the visions of men who had been raised from the dead are reported. Among her pupils at Barking was Cuthburga, daughter of Ina, king of Wessex, and afterwards abbess of Wimborne, Dorsetshire. The date of Hildilid's death is uncertain, but Bede says she lived to a great age, and she was apparently dead before the date of Boniface's letter. Wilson (Martyrologium Anglicanum) gives her day as 22 Dec., but the more usually accepted date is 24 March. There is a life of Hildilid in Capgrave's ‘Nova Legenda Anglie’ (see Hardy, Cat. Brit. Hist. i. 414). Aldhelm, while abbot of Malmesbury, dedicated to her his treatise, ‘De Laudibus Virginitatis’ (Malmesbury, Gesta Pontif. p. 143, Rolls Ser.)
[Bædæ Hist. Eccl. and Florence of Worcester in Engl. Hist. Soc.; Capgrave, Nova Legenda Anglie, p. 180; Bollandists' Acta Sanctorum, March iii. 484; Mabillon, Act. Sanct. Ord. Bened. III. i. 288; Dict. Christ. Biog.]
HILDITCH, Sir EDWARD, M.D. (1805–1876), inspector-general of hospitals, was born in 1805, studied medicine at St. George's Hospital, took his diploma in 1826, and at once entered the naval medical service. He was on the West Indian station from 1830 to 1855, and had a most extensive experience in dealing with outbreaks of yellow fever. He reached the rank of inspector-general in 1854. In 1855 he was appointed to the charge of Plymouth Hospital, in 1861 to Greenwich Hospital, and was placed on the retired list in 1865, receiving the honour of knighthood. In 1859 he was named honorary physician to the queen, when the distinction was first instituted. He died at Bayswater on 24 Aug. 1876, aged 71.
[Lancet, 2 Sept. 1876.]
HILDROP, JOHN (d. 1756), divine, was educated at St. John's College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. on 7 July 1702, M.A. on 8 June 1705, B.D. and D.D. on 9 June 1743. On 14 April 1703 he was presented to the mastership of the Royal Free Grammar School at Marlborough by Thomas, earl of Ailesbury and Elgin. He was also rector of Maulden, Bedfordshire. He resigned the mastership on 4 Dec. 1733, and the rectory on 23 March 1733–4. On 13 April 1734 he was instituted to the rectory of Wath-juxta-Ripon on the presentation of Charles, lord Bruce, afterwards earl of Ailesbury and Elgin, whose chaplain he was. He was a friend and correspondent of Dr. Zachary Grey [q. v.] In 1740 he became one of the regular contributors to the ‘Weekly Miscellany.’ He died on 18 Jan. 1756. Hildrop published from time to time, anonymously or under the pseudonyms of ‘Phileleutherus Britannicus’ and ‘Timothy Hooker,’ various fugitive essays of a satirico-polemical stamp, chiefly directed against the deists, of slight intrinsic value, but written in a style unusually nervous, easy, and entertaining. Some of these were reprinted as ‘The Miscellaneous Works of John Hildrop, D.D.,’ London, 1754, 2 vols. 8vo. They comprise: 1. ‘An Essay for the better Regulation and Improvement of Free-Thinking.’ 2. ‘An Essay on Honour.’ 3. ‘Free Thoughts upon the Brute Creation or an Examination of Father Bougeant's “Philosophical Amusement,”’ &c. (an attempt to prove that the lower animals have souls in a state of degradation consequent upon the fall of man). 4. ‘A Modest Apology for the Ancient and Honourable Family of the Wrongheads.’ 5. ‘A Letter to a Member of Parliament containing a Proposal for bringing in a Bill to revise, amend, or repeal certain obsolete Statutes commonly called the Ten Commandments.’ This amusing jeu d'esprit, which on its first appearance was attributed to Swift, was reprinted in 1834, London, 8vo. 6. ‘The Contempt of the Clergy considered’ (an argument for the liberation of the church from state control). 7. ‘Some Memoirs of the Life of Simon Shallow.’ Other miscellanies by Hildrop are: 1. ‘Reflections upon Reason,’ London, 1722, 8vo (a satire upon free-thinking, attributed at first to Bishop Gastrell [q. v.], and examined by Thomas Morgan in ‘Enthusiasm in Distress,’ London, 1722, 8vo). 2. ‘A Caveat
