Hill family, Marquesses of Downshire

Sir Moyses Hill (d. 1630) acquired estates in Counties Antrim and Down in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. They were increased by purchase and inheritance, and the marriage of his grandson William Hill (d. 1693) to Eleanor Boyle brought the Blessington (Co. Wicklow) estate into the family. Trevor Hill was created Viscount Hillsborough in 1717, and his son Earl of Hillsborough in 1751 and Marquess of Downshire in 1789. In 1786 Arthur Hill (d. 1801), later 2nd Marquess, married Mary Sandys, heir not only through her uncle the 2nd Baron Sandys to the Worcestershire and East Anglia estates of the Sandys family, but also through her mother to the estates of the Blundell, Alexander, Lee, Vanlore and Trumbull families.

William Trumbull (d. 1635) acquired the Easthampstead (Berkshire) estate in 1627-28. His grandson, Sir William Trumbull, married Judith Alexander, daughter of the 4th Earl of Stirling and eventual co-heir to property in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Somerset, Surrey and elsewhere, including estates inherited from the Lee and Vanlore families. William Trumbull, son of Sir William, married Mary Blundell, daughter and co-heir of Viscount Blundell (d. 1756), through whom the Dundrum (Co. Down) and Edenderry (Co. Offaly) estates descended. It was Mary, daughter and heir of William Trumbull and Mary Blundell, who married in 1760 Colonel Martin Sandys, brother of the 2nd Baron Sandys (d. 1797), and their daughter Mary who married Viscount Fairford, later 2nd Marquess of Downshire.

The Sandys barony was recreated for Mary, Marchioness of Downshire, in 1802, and on her death in 1836 she was succeeded in the barony and in the Sandys estates by her second son, Lord Arthur Hill.

Estates in 1883: 78,051 acres in Co. Down; 15,766 acres in Co. Wicklow; 13,679 acres in Co. Offaly; 5,787 acres in Co. Antrim; 1,338 acres in Co. Kildare; 5,287 acres in Berkshire and 281 acres in Suffolk, worth £96,691 a year.