James Hill (c.1811 – 1853) was a fiddler-composer and publican. Born in Dundee, his family moved to Newcastle upon Tyne and he lived there or Gateshead for the remainder of his short life. He is famous as the composer of many fine common-time hornpipes for fiddle, including The High Level Bridge, The Beeswing, The Hawk and The Omnibus. He was sufficiently well known that many other tunes by others, such as Blaydon Flats, were also mistakenly attributed to him.