The original business was founded in 1868 by his grandfather George Hill, a master cooper, to supply barrels for the transport of locks, chains, animal traps and other hardware manufactured in the West Midlands. By the early 1900s and with the march of both history and changing freight methods, George Hill had moved into the assembly of packing cases and ammunition boxes.

During the second world war, Jimmy Hill was in the second wave of D-Day landings and went on to be responsible for the civilian workforce of Brussels after its liberation. On his return to England, he found the family factory completely destroyed by an incendiary bomb. With his brother John they rebuilt the factory and restarted the business, running it as joint managing directors until 1985 and building it up into one of the Midlands’ major suppliers of export packing cases and heavy-duty cardboard boxes. During this time, Mr Hill played active roles in both TIMCON and FEFPEB.

During the 1950s the family began to make fencing panels to utilise off-cuts. In 1959 Mr Hill persuaded one of his Portuguese boxboard suppliers to begin cutting fencing slats – a move which spawned a whole sub-industry in Portugal. Grange Fencing was born and by the 1980s it had grown to match the packaging business in size.

In 1985, the George Hill packaging and Grange Fencing businesses were demerged. Mr Hill’s son, Duncan, took over the reins at Grange Fencing while Jimmy took on its chairmanship, a role he maintained until his death. During this period, Grange grew into the largest UK manufacturer of fencing panels.

Jimmy Hill served 65 years as director of the family businesses.