Arthur Hill

Colonel Arthur Hill PC(I) (c.1600 – April 1663) was an Anglo-Irish landowner, soldier and politician, who led Protestant settler forces during the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and held influential appointments in the Dublin Castle administration. He was a strong advocate of the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland and founded the current settlement of Hillsborough in County Down during the Plantation of Ulster.

Biography Early life and the Irish rebellion Hill was the second son of Sir Moyses Hill of Hill Hall, County Down, and Alice Hill (née McDonnell). He was also active in buying and leasing land in Kilwarlin, Cromlyn and Iveagh. Alongside his friend and kinsman, Sir George Rawdon, 1st Baronet, Hill was a strong supporter of the Church of Ireland. He became an increasingly powerful figure in Irish affairs under The Protectorate, sitting on the Council of State's trade committee from January 1656 and advising Henry Cromwell in Dublin between 1657 and 1658. Redistributing land seized from Catholic and royalist landowners under the Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652, in 1657, Cromwell granted Hill 3,000 acres of land in County Down "for services done in Ireland".