Arthur Hill, 2nd Marquess of Downshire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Hill,_2nd_Marquess_of_Downshire

Arthur Hill, 2nd Marquess of Downshire PC, FRS (3 March 1753 – 7 September 1801), styled Viscount Kilwarlin until 1789 and Earl of Hillsborough from 1789 to 1793, was a British peer and MP.

Life

The eldest son of Wills Hill, 1st Earl of Hillsborough (later Marquess of Downshire), he was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and received his M.A. in 1773. He sat as a Tory for the rotten borough of Lostwithiel from 1774 to 1780, and then for Malmesbury until 1784. He also represented Down in the Parliament of Ireland from 1776 until acceding to the peerage in 1793.

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

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

Downshire vigorously exerted himself against the Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1800, and was 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 12 February 1800.

Family

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Hill,_2nd_Marquess_of_Downshire