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.
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 in his other subsidiary titles, including that of Earl of Hillsborough in the Peerage of Great Britain.