Thomas-Étienne Hamel

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Thomas-Étienne Hamel (b. Quebec City, December 28, 1830; d. Quebec City, July 16, 1913) was a French-Canadian priest and academic. He was the son of Victor Hamel, a merchant and Therèse DeFoy.

In 1852, as a student of the Séminaire de Québec, he traveled with Louis-Jacques Casault to London where they arranged for the royal chart of what would become Laval University. After his ordainment in 1854, he was sent at Paris' École des Carmes and eventually graduated from the Sorbonne with a license in science, before returning to Quebec to teach at the Séminaire, also acquiring the office of general secretary of the new university. He became a rector of the Séminaire de Québec and Laval University (1871–1880, 1883–1886, librarian from 1888) and a founder as well as a president (1886–1887) of the Royal Society of Canada. He was Vicar general of the Archdiocese of Quebec from 1871 and appointed an apostolic prothonotary in 1886. In 1881, he lead a delegation to Rome to argue against the independence of the Montreal branch (which would ultimately become the Université de Montréal).

Hamel wrote a biography of Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau (Le Premier Cardinal canadien, 1888) and a manual of rhetorics (Un Cours d'éloquence parlée d'après Descartes, 1906). His contributions to the study of the Music of Quebec, notably his Annales musicales du Petit-Cap (an unpublished compilation of folk song preserved at the Séminaire), have been little studied. Although a biography of him was intended for inclusion in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, it was never included for unknown reasons, and no definite biography of him exist.

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Academic offices
Preceded by Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau	Rector of Université Laval 1871-1880	Succeeded by Michel-Édouard Méthot
Preceded by Michel-Édouard Méthot	Rector of Université Laval 1883-1886
Professional and academic associations
Preceded by Daniel Wilson	President of the Royal Society of Canada 1886-1887	Succeeded by George Lawson

Persondata
NAME	Hamel, Thomas-Étienne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Hamel, Thomas-Etienne; Hamel, Thomas Étienne; Hamel, Thomas-E.; Hamel, T-E
SHORT DESCRIPTION	French-Canadian priest, academic and university rector
DATE OF BIRTH	December 28, 1830
PLACE OF BIRTH	Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
DATE OF DEATH	July 16, 1913
PLACE OF DEATH	Quebec City