William Hamilton (geologist)

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox officeholder William John Hamilton Template:Post-nominals (5 July 1805 – 27 June 1867) was a British geologist who served as a Conservative Member of Parliament.

Early life

Hamilton was born in Wishaw, Lanarkshire on 5 July 1805. He was the eldest son of William Richard Hamilton, FRS, and the former Julia Udny. His younger brothers were Alexander Edmund Hamilton (who drowned in India in 1827),<ref name="Burke's1878"/> Capt. Henry George Hamilton of the Royal Navy (father of Adm. Sir Frederick Hamilton),<ref name="Burke's1878"/> Charles Anthony Hamilton (who worked in the Privy Council office),<ref name="Burke's1878"/> Arthur Richard Hamilton,<ref name="Burke's1878"/> and Gen. Frederick William Hamilton.<ref name="dundee">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>London Lady's Newspaper & Pictorial Times, 16 June 1860</ref>

His paternal grandfather was Anthony Hamilton, the Archdeacon of Colchester. His maternal grandparents were John Udny, British Counsul at Venice and Leghorn, and Selina Shore Clevland (a daughter of John Clevland MP). His uncle, Lt.-Col. John Robert Fullerton Udny inherited Udny Castle in Aberdeen from his uncle, Robert Udny, the prominent merchant and art collector.<ref name="Burke's1878">Template:Cite book</ref>

He was educated at Charterhouse School and the University of Göttingen.<ref name="Cokayne2000"/>

Career

He became a fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1831. In 1835 he made a geological tour of the Levant with Hugh Edwin Strickland, continuing on his own through Armenia and across Asia Minor. This journey was described in Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus, and Armenia (1842). Hamilton was the first known person to have successfully climbed Mount Erciyes.

He was a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Newport, Isle of Wight, from 1841 to 1847.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Hamilton was president of the Royal Geographical Society for 1848–1849 and of the Geological Society between 1854 and 1866. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1855.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1862.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

He made excursions in France and Belgium and wrote on the rocks and minerals of Tuscany, the agate quarries of Oberstein, and on the geology of the Mayence basin and the Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) district.<ref name="DNB">Template:Cite DNB</ref>

Personal life

On 26 April 1832, Hamilton married Martin Trotter, a daughter of John Trotter. Before her death in March 1833, they had a son:<ref name="Cokayne2000"/>

• Robert William Hamilton (1833–1883), who married Charlotte Maria Palmer, a daughter of Lt.-Col. George Palmer.<ref name="Cokayne2000"/>

On 26 July 1838, he married the Hon. Margaret Frances Florence Dillon, a daughter of Henry Augustus Dillon-Lee, 13th Viscount Dillon, and Henrietta Browne (sister to Dominick Browne, 1st Baron Oranmore and Browne). They had six children:<ref name="Cokayne2000">G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume II, page 95.</ref>

• Margaret Wilhelmina Hamilton (d. 1915), who married Louis Eric Ames, son Henry Ames of Linden.<ref name="Cokayne2000"/>
• Florence Selina Hamilton (d. 1904), who married Sir Thomas Villiers Lister, son of Thomas Henry Lister, in 1877.<ref name="Cokayne2000"/>
• Victoria Henrietta Hamilton (d. 1917), who married of James Graham Goodenough (parents of Adm. Sir William Edmund Goodenough).<ref name="Cokayne2000"/>
• Alexander Charles Hamilton (1840–1920), who successfully claimed the title of 10th Lord Belhaven and Stenton.<ref name="Burke_Mosley">Template:Cite book</ref>
• Constantine Henry Hamilton (1843–1885), a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Artillery who died unmarried.<ref name="Cokayne2000"/>
• Archibald William Hamilton (1847–1886), who married Elizabeth Ann Billyard, daughter of W. Billyard, in 1869.<ref name="Hammond1998">Peter W. Hammond, editor, The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times, Volume XIV: Addenda & Corrigenda (Stroud, Gloucestershire, U.K.: Sutton Publishing, 1998), page 82</ref>

Hamilton died in London in 1867, his wife survived him.<ref name="Burke_Mosley" />

Descendants

As his son Alexander died without surviving male issue, his grandson Robert Hamilton-Udny (son of his youngest son Archibald), inherited the title of 10th Lord Belhaven and Stenton.<ref name="Hammond1998"/>

External links

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