Henry Hill was born in Fremantle, Western Australia, on 18 May 1905, the son of John Manners Hill, a builder, and Caroline Alcock. He was educated at Guildford and Christchurch Grammar Schools in Western Australia, and Ormond College in Melbourne. He trained at Melbourne University, where he won an exhibition in medicine. After qualification in 1928 he was appointed to junior posts at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, and later trained in orthopaedics at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry. During the second world war he served in the Australian army with the rank of major, and he was subsequently appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Royal Perth Hospital and Fremantle Hospital. He married Miss Dixon in 1935, and he and his wife had four children, two of whom became doctors. His interests were golf and orchid cultivation. He is noted as having died in the GMC list of 15 March 1991.