Person:Thomas Hamilton (89)

Thomas HAMILTON was b. 1790. Thomas, son of Professor William Hamilton and Elizabeth Stirling, was chr jan1790 (Glasgow Baptisms, Old Glasgow Exhibition notes and indexes). Thomas was author of “Cyril Thornton”. Thomas Hamilton (No. 5602, matriculated 1803) fil. m. defuncti Gulielmi, quondam Rei Medicae Professoria in hac Academia. B. Glasgow 4jan1790. Capt in 97th Regt, etc. Author of “Life and Manhood of Cyril Thornton”. D. at Pisa 7dec1842. son of 2959; brother of 6156 (Matriculation Albums, Glasgow University). A portrait of Thomas Hamilton was lent to Old Glasgow Exhibition by Sheriff Hubert Hamilton; Thomas was brother of Sir William Hamilton of Preston (Exhibition catalogue). Thomas was a friend of Michael SCOTT (b. 30oct 1789 at Glasgow (Latter Day Saints)).

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Dictionary of National Biography: Hamilton, Thomas (1789-1842), novelist and travel writer, was born in Glasgow, the second son of William Hamilton (1758-1790), professor of anatomy and botany at Glasgow University, and his wife, Elizabeth (d. 1827), daughter of William Stirling, a Glasgow merchant. He was the younger brother of William Stirling Hamilton (1788-1856), the philosopher. Following preliminary education in Glasgow, he was assigned to a series of private tutors between 1801 and 1803. In November 1803 he entered Glasgow University, where he studied for three years, proving himself to be an able, if not diligent, student. During his college years he became friends with Michael Scott (1789-1833), author of Tom Cringle's Log (1836).Hamilton worked for a time in Glasgow and Liverpool, but showed no aptitude for business. His bent was towards a military career, and in 1810 he obtained a commission in the 29th regiment. He had two spells of active service in the Peninsula, on one occasion receiving a serious wound in the thigh from a musket bullet. He also served in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, before being sent with his regiment to France as part of the army of occupation. About 1818 he retired from the army on half pay, and settled in Edinburgh, where he fell in with J. G. Lockhart and the circle of writers associated with Blackwood's Magazine.On 14 November 1820 Hamilton married Anne Montgomery (d. 1829), the daughter of Archibald Montgomery Campbell, and spent several summers with his wife at Lockhart's cottage near Abbotsford, where they made the acquaintance of Sir Walter Scott. In 1827 Hamilton published the novel Cyril Thornton, which contains fictionalized accounts of his early life in Glasgow and his military experiences; it went through three editions in his lifetime. In 1829 he published Annals of the Peninsular Campaign. In the same year he travelled to Italy, and at the end of the year his wife died, and was buried in Florence.Following his return to Scotland, Hamilton proceeded to visit America, bringing back materials for a book. His genially satirical Men and Manners in America (1833) was a popular success, and was translated into French and German. On 15 February 1834 he was married a second time, to Maria Frances Geslip (d. 1875), the daughter and coheir of François Joseph Louis de Latour of Madras, and widow of Sir Robert Townsend Farquhar (1776-1830), the former governor of Mauritius. They settled at Elleray, Westmorland, where they became friends with William Wordsworth. While visiting Florence with his wife, Hamilton suffered a paralytic seizure, and died in Pisa of a second attack on 7 December 1842. He was buried in the protestant cemetery in Florence, beside his first wife.T. W. Bayne, rev. Douglas Brown