Farrar was born on 20 April 1897 in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, the second child of Farrar and Rachel Anne (née Thorpe) Hill, older sister Martha Ellen (1895) and younger twin brothers Rowland Albert and John Edward (1903) with baby sister Eveline (1907) completing the family unit.

He joined the Royal Navy on 3 September 1912 when he walked through the gates of HMS GANGES the “Boy Training Establishment” in Shotley, Suffolk, and signed on as a Boy Second Class. On 25 January 1913 he was transferred to GANGES ll where on 25 March he was advanced to Boy First Class and drafted to HMS EDGAR for a 5 month period. On 5 August 1913 he made his first visit to HMS VIVID 1, the Royal Naval Barracks in Devonport. On 23 August he was drafted to HMS BERWICK, his home for the next two years, and where on the 28 January 1915 he was advanced to Ordinary Seaman, and only 3 months later on 20 April up to Able Seaman and a return to VIVID 1 on 13 November 1915. He transferred to HMS DEFIANCE on 22 December 1915 and returned to VIVID 1 on 29 February 1916 until 19 March when he returned to DEFIANCE for 3 months prior to a draft to HMS HECLA on 24 June. Here he volunteered for the submarine service and was drafted to HMS DOLPHIN in Gosport on 17 October 1916 to 15 March 1917. On 16 March he received a draft to HMS MAIDSTONE based in Harwich for HMS E50.

E50 departed Harwich on 21 January 1918 for a patrol area off the West coast of Denmark and was not seen or heard from again until 2011. Initial reports thought that she had struck a mine on route to the designated patrol area on the seaward side of 54.45N 6.15E. The official date of loss of 1 February 1918 is the date the vessel was declared “missing presumed lost.”

In 2011 an authorised Danish diving expedition found a wreck of an “E Class” submarine 65 nm West of the Danish town of Nymindegab and from information gained on site proved to be the long lost E50, She was sat upright on the sea bed with her planes set to the rise angle, hull intact  except for her conning tower that had been ripped off by fishing trawler activity. To save further damage the tower was recovered, cleaned and preserved and is now on display in the “Jutland Memorial Naval Museum” in the town of Thyboran,Denmark.

Able Seaman Farrar Hill, Svc. No. J20092 “Crossed The Bar” sometime in late January 1918 in company with 30 of his shipmates. He is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial on Panel 27.