Born 11 April 1875 at Newnham Hall, Baldock, Herts, eldest son of Neville Joseph Hine, JP, chartered accountant, and Eliza Taylor his wife. N J Hine was chairman of the Hitchin Rural District Council for thirty-three years and was an alderman of the Herts County Council. Hine was educated at the Leys School, Cambridge, and entered the Middlesex Hospital with the first scholarship and was later Broderip scholar. He subsequently served the Hospital as house physician and house surgeon, and was house surgeon at the Lock Hospital. He went round the world as a ship's surgeon, and served during the Boer War as a civil surgeon with the South African field force. He took part in the relief of Ladysmith, and served as medical officer to a prisoner of war camp. In 1902 Hine settled at Newark in partnership with R T Matterson, MRCS 1860; he developed the practice largely, and ultimately took two of his sons into partnership. He was elected surgeon to the Newark Town and District Hospital in 1902, on the death of Henry Owen Lucas, MRCS 1874, and in 1930 became senior surgeon in the place of Ernest Ringrose, MD, MRCS who had resigned the previous year; Hine was elected consulting surgeon in 1940. He was also medical officer to the County Institution Infirmary, and was a medical referee for the Pearl and other insurance companies. During the first world war he served as medical officer to the Royal Engineers 1914-18, and in the second war he served on the local medical boards 1939-44. In later years Hine took a prominent part in local affairs. In April 1935 he was elected a town councillor and became mayor of Newark in 1937, perhaps the newest councillor ever to be so advanced, and was active in raising money for the hospital. He was a keen freemason and rotarian. He was past master and served various provincial offices in both Rose Croix and Mark Masonry. He was at one time president of Newark Rotary Club and a vice-chairman of no 7 district Rotary. He was a Navigation Commissioner for Newark. Hine was also a prominent member of the Methodist Church. In 1904 he married Garneta Stretch, who survived him with six sons and a daughter. Two sons became Members of the College; the eldest was serving in the RAMC at the time of Hine's death and had won the Military Cross. His principal recreations were lawn tennis and shooting, and he had been president of the Newark Amateur Dramatic Society.