Sunday February 29th 2004
THE 8th Marquess of Downshire, the 12th Hereditary Constable of Hillsborough Fort who has died aged 74, successfully re-established his once great Ulster landowning family in North Yorkshire after the Irish Land Acts and Bracknell New Town had largely deprived them of their original estates.
Robin Hill, as he was before he succeeded to his uncle's seven peerages in 1989, lived life with his pedal to the metal. From cars to the Cresta, he loved anything that went fast and was a fearless competitor.
For his first run in the two-man bob at St Moritz, Hill acted as brakeman to his good friend John Bingham, later Lord Lucan, who was an expert driver. Getting out of the bob at the bottom of the run, an ashen-faced Bingham demanded: "Didn't you hear me shout brake?" Hill, dazed and grinning from ear to ear, was nonplussed; the combination had just posted the fastest time of the week.
As a young man, Hill was a cornerstone of many a party, known to have driven from Kelso to London for an evening, and later straight back, albeit in an Alvis. He was regularly stopped by police for speeding, prompting one magistrate to inquire whether he regarded the M1 as his private race track.
Arthur Robin Ian Hill was born on May 10, 1929, at Brompton Square, London, the only son of Lord Arthur Francis Hill, the younger son of the 6th Marquess of Downshire. His family descended from Moyses Hill, a Devon man who arrived in Ireland in 1573 as a landless adventurer in Essex's army sent to subdue the rebellious O'Neill. In 1607 Hill bought his family's first manor in Co Down. His descendants became numbered among the richest, most powerful and most benevolent landowners in Ireland.
Wills Hill, created the 1st Marquess of Downshire in 1789, was a prominent member of Lord North's cabinet at the time of the American (Revolutionary) War, and collected land and peerages with aplomb.
By 1883 the Hills had the eighth-highest landed income in the United Kingdom, with 115,000 acres in Ireland and 5,000 in Berkshire. In the mid-19th century one could go from Larne in Co Antrim, to Blessington, Co Wicklow without losing sight of Hill land.
The core was the Kilwarlin estate around Hillsborough in Co Down. This was built around the old Hill seat of Hillsborough Castle, after 1922 Government House and subsequently the official residence of the Secretary of State. Then there is Hillsborough Fort, still a treasured Downshire heirloom. He did his National Service with the Royal Scots Greys in Germany from 1948 to 1950. After qualifying as a chartered accountant, he worked as a discount banker at Gerrards before founding Ritchey Tagg. In 1963 he took up farming.
When he succeeded his uncle in 1989, the need to satisfy the Treasury led Downshire to contemplate selling the Trumbull papers, which had been in his family since the 2nd Marquess married the heir of the last Trumbull.
The Trumbull inheritance included the Easthampstead estate, near Bracknell, and with it 380 volumes of manuscripts collected by Sir William Trumbull (1639-1716). The archive, which features letters by Stuart kings, Philip II of Spain, Maria de Medici, Bacon, Donne, Dryden, Fenton, Pope and Weckherlin, had been on loan to Berkshire county records office. In the summer of 1989 the collection was sent to Sotheby's in London, with an estimate of £2.5m. But on the eve of the November sale a deal was done with the Inland Revenue, the auction was cancelled and the British Library took the papers.
Taking his seat in the House of Lords in November 1989, Downshire joined the Conservative benches. He was a rare speaker, but by the time of his expulsion in 1999 he was the most attentive of the seven Irish Marquesses. His maiden speech, in 1994, taking note of recent developments in Northern Ireland, was praised by Lord Williams of Mostyn as being "of interest and of great content".
In 1957 he married Juliet Weld-Forester, a daughter of the 7th Baron Forester. She died in 1986. In 1989 he married Diana Hibbert, a daughter of Sir Ronald Hibbert Cross, Bt. She died in 1998, and he married, thirdly, Tessa Prain in 2002.
He is survived by the two sons and daughter of his first marriage, and by his third wife. His elder son, Nicholas, who till now used the courtesy title of Earl of Hillsborough, succeeds him, and also becomes heir presumptive to the 7th Baron Sandys.