Matthew Davenport Hill (6 August 1792 – 7 June 1872) was an English lawyer and prison reform campaigner and MP.
[2] He acted as assistant in his father's school, but in 1819 was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn.
Taking an interest in questions relating to the treatment of criminal offenders, he publicly aired opinions which were the means of introducing many important reforms in the methods of dealing with crime, drawing notably upon the theories of the Scottish penal reformer, Alexander Maconochie.
One of his principal coadjutors in these reforms was his brother Frederic Hill (1803–1896), whose Amount, Causes and Remedies of Crime, the result of his experience as inspector of prisons for Scotland.
Hill was one of the chief promoters of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and the originator of the Penny Magazine.