Hamilton resigned his professorship in 1800, and died on 23 May 1802. His sons James (d. 1839) and Henry Parr are separately noticed.
Hamilton wrote:
- 'Elements of the Practice of Midwifery,' London, 1775.
- 'A Treatise of Midwifery, comprehending the whole Management of Female Complaints and Treatment of Children in early Infancy,' Edinburgh, 1780; translated into German by J.P. Ebeling.
- 'Outlines of the Theory and Practice of Midwifery,' Edinburgh, 1784; 5th edit. 1803.
- 'Smellie's Anatomical Tables; with Abridgment of the Practice of Midwifery,' revised, with notes and illustrations, Edinburgh, 1786.
- 'Treatise on the Management of Female Complaints, and of Children in Early Infancy,' Edinburgh, 1792; 7th edit, revised by James Hamilton the younger, 1813; French translation, 1798.
- 'Letter to Dr. William Osborn on certain Doctrines contained in his Essays on the Practice of Midwifery,' Edinburgh, 1792.
[Anderson's Scottish Nation, ii. 446; Prof. A. R. Simpson's Lecture on the Hist. of the Chair of Midwifery, 1883; Kay's Edinburgh Portraits; J. Gairdner on Hist. of Medical Profession in Edinburgh (Edinburgh Med. Jour.), 1862, p. 700; Grant's Story of Edinburgh University, i. 322, ii. 416.]
HAMILTON, ALEXANDER (1762–1824), orientalist, was in the employment of the East India Company in Bengal, and was a member of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. On his return to England he continued his Sanscrit studies, first at the British Museum, and after the peace of Amiens at the Paris library. On the recommencement of hostilities he was among the British subjects detained as hostages. Regarded as the only man on the continent with a thorough mastery of Sanscrit, he taught that language to Frederic Schlegel and Fauriel. At the request of Langlès, keeper of oriental manuscripts at the Paris Library, he drew up an analytical catalogue of its Sanscrit manuscripts, which till then had been catalogued only by librarians ignorant of the language. This was translated, annotated, and published by Langlès in the 'Magasin Encyclopédique,' 1807. Released probably on account of this service, Hamilton, who in 1808 was elected a F.R.S., became professor of Sanscrit and Hindoo literature at Haileybury College. He published 'The Hitopadesa in the Sanscrit Language,' London, 1811; 'Terms of Sanscrit Grammar,' London, 1815; and 'A Key to the Chronology of the Hindus,' 1820. He also wrote magazine articles on ancient Indian geography. He died at Liverpool 30 Dec. 1824.
[Gent. Mag. 1825; Journal Asiatique, Paris, 1825; Académic des Inscriptions, notices of Fauriel and Chézy; Moniteur, 31 May and 25 June 1808.]
HAMILTON, ANDREW (d. 1691), rector and prebendary of Kilskerry, was probably son of Andrew Hamilton, M.A., who was collated in August 1639 to the rectory and prebend of Kilskerry, co. Tyrone, and the rectory of Magheracross, co. Fermanagh, which he held until 1661 (Bradshaw, Enniskillen Long Ago, p. 122). Andrew Hamilton, 'jun.' (Cotton), was admitted to priest's orders on 7 Aug. 1661, and graduated M.A. at an unknown date and university. He was collated to the union of Kilskerry and Magheracross 4 April 1666, in succession to James Hamilton. He took an active part in the measures of self-defence adopted by the protestants in Ireland under James II, and lost heavily by the wanton destruction of his property. In August 1689 he was sent by the governor and officers of Enniskillen as their agent to King William and Queen Mary, with a certificate stating that Hamilton had been a member of their association from its inauguration on 9 Dec. 1688; that he had raised a troop of horse and a company of foot; that a force under the Duke of Berwick had burnt his houses in ten villages, and carried off over a thousand cows, two hundred horses, and two thousand sheep from him and his tenants; that he had lost his private estate and church living, worth above 400l. a year, and now in the enemy's power; and that he had been a 'painful and constant preacher' during his tenure of the prebend of Clogher. His name appears in the 'List of the Persons Attainted in King James's Parliament of 1689 in Ireland' as 'Andrew Hamilton of Magherycrosse, clerk.' Having been, as he has stated, 'an eye-witness' of what he describes, and an 'actor therein,' he published a small quarto, entitled 'A True Relation of the Actions of the Inniskilling Men from December 1688, for the Defence of the Protestant Religion and their Lives and Liberties' (London, 1690), and this faithful record has been twice reprinted (Belfast, 1813 and 1864). He died in 1691, and was succeeded in his benefice by James Kirkwood.
[Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiæ Hibernicæ, iii. 98; Bradshaw's Enniskillen Long Ago, pp. 112, 122; Sir James Ware's Works, ed. Harris, ii. 252; Archbishop King's State of the Protestants of Ireland under King James's Government, ed. 1691, p. 276.]
HAMILTON, ANNE, Duchess of Hamilton (1636–1717). [See under Douglas, William, third Duke of Hamilton.]
