Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.
Sir William Hamilton
January 12 1731-April 6 1803
Now, 200 years after he has died, he is more famous for whom he was married to, than his achievements in life.
For 36 years he was the British Ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples. From 1764 to 1800. Turbulent times that saw the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon.
Hamilton was also an antiquarian, an archaeologist and vulcanologist. (DWW-being Ambassador in Naples provided was access to Vesuvius and Etna.) He was a noted collector and became a member of the Royal Society. Born the fourth son of Lord Archibald Hamilton, who was Governor of Jamica, his mother was the daughter of the sixth Earl of Aberdeen. She was a mistress of the son of George II, George the Prince of Wales, who was the father of George III. George III called Sir William his foster brother.
Sir William attended the Westminster School and then was commissioned into the 3rd Foot Guards in 1747. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1753. He married Catherine Barlow, daughter of a politician and left the army. She died in 1782, they had no children. In 1786, when he was 55 his nephew sent him a stunning young lady who had become the muse for George Romney. Sir William cancelled his nephew, Charles Greville’s debts for the introduction. Emma Lyon (Hart) captivated Sir William. They were married in 1791. He was 60 then and she was 26.
When Horatio Nelson crossed their path, a man he admired, he encouraged the notorious affair to develop. Eventually when they abandoned Naples, the three took up living all in the same houses in both Merton Place and London. Nelson refused to seek his own divorce and marry Emma until Sir William died, for they were such good friends.
William served as an MP for Midhurst in 1761 but then left to become the Ambassador to Naples. He began his collection of Greek Vases and other antiquities selling a part of his collection to the British Museum. A second collection was lost at sea when the HMS Colossus went down. What survived was purchased by Thomas Hope.
Sir William became an author Antiquités étrusques, grecques et romaines (1766–67) and Observations on Mount Vesuvius (1772). And he was a member of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a member of the Society of Dilettanti. He made more than 65 ascents to Mount Vesuvius and made a number of drawings before it’s eruption in 1765. He met Mozart during his tour of Italy in 1770. Goethe visited Hamilton in 1787. Goethe thought two chandeliers were most likely smuggled from Pompei, and a friend agreed telling the famed poet, that he should not pursue his investigations any further. Hamilton died in 1803 and is buried next to his first wife.
Previous Notables (Click to see the Blog):
There will be many other notables coming, a full and changing list can be found here on the blog as I keep adding to it. The list so far is:
David Garrick
Pownoll Bastard Pellew
Joseph Antonio Emidy
‘Gentleman’ John Jackson
Edward Gibbon
William Mason
Thomas Warton
Adam Walker
John Opie
William Upcott
William Cowper
Richard Cumberland
Richard Cosway
Jacob Phillipp Hackert
Sir George Warren
Dominic Serres
Wellington (the Military man)
Horatio Nelson
Cuthbert Collingwood
Thomas Troubridge
Admiral Sir Graham Moore
Admiral Sir William Sydney Smith
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville
Howe
Viscount Hood
Thomas Hope
Charles Greville
Colin Mccaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Napoleon Bonaparte
Packenham
Admiral Israel Pellew
General Banastre Tarleton
Henry Paget
Stapleton Cotton
Sir Charles Grey
Thomas Picton
Constable
Lawrence
Cruikshank
Thomas Gainsborough
Gillray
Sir Joshua Reynolds
George Stubbs
Joseph Priestley
William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk 9th Duke of St. Albans
Horace Walpole
John Thomas ‘Antiquity’ Smith
Thomas Coutts
Rowlandson
William Blake
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Sir Marc Brunel
Marquis of Stafford George Leveson-Gower
George Stephenson
William Huskisson
Robert Stephenson
Fanny Kemble
Mary Shelley
Ann Radcliffe
Paul III Anton, Prince Esterházy
Charles Arbuthnot
Thomas Egerton, 2nd Earl of Wilton
Henry Herbert Southey
John Nash
Matthew Gregory Lewis
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Thomas Hope
William Beechey
Scrope Davies
Henry Holland
Sir Walter Scott
Lord Elgin
Jeffery Wyatville
Hester Thrale
William Windham
Madame de Stael
James Boswell
Edward Eliot
George Combe
Sir Harry Smith
Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond
Juana Maria de Los Dolores de Leon (Lady Smith)
Duke of Argyll, George William Campbell (1766-1839)
Lord Barrymore, Richard Barry (1769-1794)
Lord Bedford, Francis Russell (1765-1802)
Mr. G. Dawson Damer (1788-1856)
Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish (1748-1811)
Lord Foley, Thomas Foley (1780-1833)
Colonel George Hanger (c.1751-1824)
Lord Hertford, Francis Seymour-Ingram (1743-1822)
Lord Yarmouth, Francis Charles Seymour-Ingram (1777-1842)
Edward “Golden Ball” Hughes (1798-1863)
Earl of Jersey, George Bussey Villiers (1735-1805)
Sir John , John Lade (1759-1838)
Duke of Norfolk, Charles Howard (1746-1815)
Duke of York , Frederick Augustus Hanover (1763-1827)
Louis Philippe Joseph, Duc de Chartres, acceded 1785 as Duc d’ Orleans (1747-1793)
Louis Philippe, Duc de Chartres, acceded 1793 as Duc d’ Orleans (1773-1850)
Captain John (Jack) Willett Payne (1752-1803)
Viscount Petersham, Charles Stanhope(1780-1851)
Duke of Queensberry, William Douglas (1724-1810)
Duke of Rutland, John Henry Manners(1778-1857)
Lord Sefton, William Philip Molyneux (1772-1838)
Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour (1759-1801)
Sir Lumley St. George Skeffington Baronet (1771 – 1850)
Lord Worcester, Henry Somerset (1766-1835)
Lord Worcester, Henry Somerset (1792-1853)
Hon. Frederick Gerald aka “Poodle” Byng
Thomas Cochrane
Warren Hastings
Edmund Burke
The Dandy Club
Beau Brummell
William Arden, 2nd Baron Alvanley
Henry Mildmay
Henry Pierrepoint
Patronesses of Almacks
Emily Lamb, Lady Cowper
Amelia Stewart, Viscountess Castlereagh
Sarah Villiers, Countess of Jersey
Maria Molyneux, Countess of Sefton
Mrs. Drummond Burrell
Dorothea Lieven, Countess de Lieven, wife of the Russian Ambassador
Countess Esterhazy, wife of the Austrian Ambassador
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