Arthur Hill, 2nd Marquess of Downshire PC, FRS, British peer and MP styled Viscount Fairford until 1789 and Earl of Hillsborough from 1789 to 1793, dies by suicide on September 7, 1801.

Hill is born on March 3, 1753, the eldest son of Wills Hill, 1st Earl of Hillsborough (later Marquess of Downshire). He matriculates at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1771, and receives his MA in 1773.

Hill sits as a Tory for the rotten borough of Lostwithiel from 1774 to 1780, and then for Malmesbury until 1784. He also represents County Down in the Irish House of Commons from 1776 until succeeding to the peerage in 1793.

Hill enjoys a number of civil and military appointments in both England and Ireland during this period. He is commissioned a captain in the Hertfordshire Militia on March 22, 1775, and a lieutenant colonel in the regiment on May 4, 1787, resigning his commission on June 4, 1794. Appointed the deputy governor of County Down on August 6, 1779, he is picked as High Sheriff of Down in 1785. He is chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society on January 22, 1790, and a deputy lieutenant of Berkshire on May 12, 1792.

Upon the death of his father on October 7, 1793, Hill succeeds him as Marquess of Downshire, in the Peerage of Ireland, as well as in his other subsidiary titles, including that of Earl of Hillsborough in the Peerage of Great Britain. He also succeeds his father as Hereditary Constable of Hillsborough Fort, and as Custos Rotulorum of County Down (October 16) and Governor of Down (October 17). On November 7, he is appointed to the Privy Council of Ireland.

Hill vigorously exerts himself against the Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1800 and is punished by the Government for his opposition by being dismissed from the Governorship of Down and the colonelcy of the Downshire Militia and struck off the roll of the Privy Council on February 12, 1800.

On June 29, 1786, Hill marries Mary Sandys, by whom he has seven children:

• Arthur Blundell Sandys Trumbull Hill, 3rd Marquess of Downshire (1788–1845)
• Lt.-Gen. Arthur Moyses William Hill, 2nd Baron Sandys (1792–1860)
• Lady Charlotte Hill (15 July 1794 – 30 September 1821)
• Lady Mary Hill (8 July 1796 – 24 May 1830)
• Arthur Marcus Cecil Sandys, 3rd Baron Sandys (1798–1863)
• Lord Arthur Augustus Edwin Hill (13 Aug 1800 – 10 July 1831)
• Major Lord George Augusta Hill (9 December 1801 – 6 April 1879)

Hill’s last son, Lord George Hill, is born posthumously, as he dies by suicide on September 7, 1801. His widow, Mary, feels his early death is in part due to his humiliation by the Government, and thereafter is a bitter enemy to Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh. She is the heiress of her uncle, Edwin Sandys, 2nd Baron Sandys, and to the estates of her grandfather, William Trumbull, including Easthampstead Park. In 1802, after Hill’s death, she is created Baroness Sandys, with a special remainder to her younger sons and their male heirs in succession and then to her eldest son and his male heirs.

Hill also has a son, William Arthur Dore-Hill, born in 1778, with his mistress Sarah Dore (who later marries William Garrow).