HAMILTON, SIR WILLIAM (173o-1803), British diplo matist and archaeologist, son of Lord Archibald Hamilton, gov ernor of Greenwich hospital and of Jamaica, was born in Scotland on Dec. 13, 1730, and served in the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards from 1747 to 1758. He left the army after his marriage with Miss Barlow, a Welsh heiress from whom he inherited an estate near Swansea upon her death in 1782. From 1764 to 1800 he was British envoy to the court of Naples, held for 36 years—until his recall in 1800. Hamilton made, or caused to be made a series of observations on the action of volcanoes. at Vesuvius and Etna, and published several treatises on earthquakes and volcanoes between 1776 and 1783. He was a notable collector and many of his treasures went to enrich the British Museum. In 1791 he married Emma Lyon. The outbreak of the French Revo lution and the rapid extension of the revolutionary movement in Western Europe soon overwhelmed Naples, a situation which he was incapable of dealing with. See, for the rest of his career, the articles HAMILTON, EMMA and NELSON, HORATIO. He died on April 6, 1803.
See E. Edwards, Lives of the Founders of the British Museum (1870).