Life
1777-1859; cousin of William Gerard Hamilton (d.1796); lamed for life
at Harrow; as sec. to Lord Elgin prevented France from carrying off the
Rosetta Stone; superintended transport of Elgin marbles; minister of Foreign
Affairs, 1809-22; minister to Naples, 1822-25; obtained restoration of
art works taken from Italy by France, 1815; BM trustee, 1838-58; his Aegytpiaca
(1809), contains first translations of Rosetta Stone. DNB
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Notes
W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (IAP
1976; rep. 1984), cites Sir William Hamilton, Collection of Engravings
from Ancient Vases, continued by Adam Buck (1811), found useful by
Sir John Beazley in his standard work on Attic red-figure pottery.
Dictionary of National Biography, calls him a son of William
John Hamilton (1805-1867), and a geologist; ed. Charterhouse and Gottingen;
sec. and then president of the Geological Soc. between 1835 and 1865;
MP Newport; tours of the Levant described in Researches in Asia Minor,
Pontus, and Armenia (1842); Pres. Royal Geographical Soc., 1837, 1841,
1842, 1847; excursions in France and Belgium; wrote on rocks of Tuscany
and geology of the Mayence basin and Hesse-Cassel.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)