Hugh Hamilton (bishop)

Hugh Hamilton FRS (26 March 1729 – 1 December 1805) was a mathematician, natural philosopher (scientist) and professor at Trinity College, Dublin, and later a Church of Ireland bishop at Clonfert and Kilmacduagh, then at Ossory.

Life

He was born at Knock, near Balrothery in County Dublin (now Fingal), on 26 March 1729, the eldest son of Alexander (died 1768[1][2]) and Isabella Hamilton.[3] His father was a solicitor and politician who represented the Killyleagh constituency in the Irish House of Commons from 1739 to 1759.[4] Alexander's great-grandfather Hugh Hamilton migrated from Scotland to County Down in the early 17th century. The Scottish architect Sir James Hamilton of Finnart was an ancestor.[3] Isabella Hamilton was born Isabella Maxwell, the daughter of the Rev. Robert Maxwell of Finnebrogue, Downpatrick.[4]

Hamilton entered Trinity College, Dublin on 17 November 1742 at the age of 13 with Thomas McDonnell as tutor. He graduated BA in 1747 and MA in 1750. He was elected a fellow of the college at the age of 22 in 1751, having been unsuccessful at the examination the previous year. He wrote the mathematical treatise De Sectionibus Conicis: Tractatus Geometricus, published in 1758.[3] In this work he "was the first to deduce the properties of the conic section from the properties of the cone, by demonstrations which were general, unencumbered by lemmas, and proceeding in a more natural and perspicuous order", according to writer James Wills in 1847.[5] It was "soon adopted in all the British universities"[5] and was translated from Latin into English as A Geometrical Treatise of the Conic Sections in 1773.

He was appointed Erasmus Smith's Professor of Natural Philosophy at Trinity College in 1759 and that same year graduated Bachelor of Divinity. Around this time he was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He graduated Doctor of Divinity in 1762. He wrote Philosophical Essays on Vapours (1767) and Four Introductory Lectures on Natural Philosophy (1774).[3]

He retired on a college living in 1764[5] and was presented by Trinity College to the rectory of Kilmacrenan in the diocese of Raphoe, County Donegal, resigning from there in 1767 and becoming vicar of St. Anne's in Dublin. He then became dean of Armagh from April 1768 to 1796. He married Isabella, daughter of Hans Widman Wood of Rosmead, County Westmeath, in 1772. Isabella's mother Frances was the twin sister of Edward, Earl of Kingston. Hamilton wrote An Essay on the Existence and Attributes of the Supreme Being (1784).[3] Gilbert Stuart painted his portrait in about 1790.[6]

He was promoted to Bishop of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh on 20 January 1796, without seeking it.[5] On 24 January 1799 he was translated to Ossory,[7] where he was bishop until 1805.[8] He died at Kilkenny on 1 December 1805[9] and was buried in St Canice's Cathedral, where there is a monument to him.[3]

References

  1. ^ Rayment, Leigh. "Irish House of Commons 1692-1800". Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page. http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/irelandcommons.htm. Retrieved 23 December 2011. 
  2. ^ Burke's Irish Family Records (103 ed.). p. 546. 
  3. ^ a b c d e f Blacker, B. H. (revised Carter, Philip) (2004). "Hamilton, Hugh (1729–1805)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/12076. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12076. Retrieved 10 December 2011. 
  4. ^ a b Hamilton, George (1933). A History of the House of Hamilton. Edinburgh: J. Skinner & Co. p. 959. 
  5. ^ a b c d Wills, James (1847?). A History of Ireland in the Lives of Irishmen. London: Fullarton. http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofireland6_00will/historyofireland6_00will_djvu.txt. Retrieved 10 December 2011. 
  6. ^ "Hugh Hamilton, Dean of Armagh, (painting)". Art Inventories Catalog. Smithsonian American Art Museum.
  7. ^ Handbook of British Chronology By Fryde, E. B; Greenway, D.E; Porter, S; Roy, I: Cambridge, CUP, 1996 ISBN 052156350X, 9780521563505
  8. ^ http://www.thesilverbowl.com/documents/1801Aug17_OLIVER-HAMILTON.html#_ftn2
  9. ^ Hugh Hamilton, Bishop of Ossory. Library Ireland.
Church of Ireland titles
Preceded by
Charles Brodrick		 Bishop of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh
1795–1799		 Succeeded by
Matthew Young
Preceded by
Thomas Lewis O'Beirne		 Bishop of Ossory
1799 –1805		 Succeeded by
John Kearney
Bishops of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh

Robert Dawson  • William Bailey  • Edward Wolley  • William FitzGerald  • Theophilus Bolton  • Arthur Price  • Edward Synge  • Mordecai Cary  • John Whitcomb  • Arthur Smyth  • Hon. William Carmichael  • William Gore  • John Oswald  • Denison Cumberland  • Walter Cope  • John Law  • Richard Marlay  • Hon. Charles Brodrick  • Hugh Hamilton  • Matthew Young  • George de la Poer Beresford  • Nathaniel Alexander  • Christopher Butson
Bishops of Ossory

Christopher Gaffney • John Horsfall • Richard Deane • Jonas Wheeler • Griffith Williams • John Parry • Benjamin Parry • Michael Ward Thomas Otway • John Hartstonge • Thomas Vesey • Edward Tennison • Charles Este • Anthony Dopping • Michael Cox • Edward Maurice • Richard Pococke • Charles Dodgson • William Newcome • John Hotham • William Beresford • Thomas O'Beirne • Hugh Hamilton  • John Kearney • Robert Fowler