Lord Ernest Hamilton

Lord Ernest William Hamilton (5 September 1858 – 14 December 1939) was a United Kingdom soldier and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1892.

Hamilton was the seventh son of James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn and his wife Lady Louisa Jane Russell. He was educated at Harrow School and Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He became a captain in the 11th Hussars.^[1]

His elder brothers Lord George Hamilton, Lord James Hamilton, and Lord Frederick Hamilton were also Conservative MPs. In the 1885 general election Hamilton was elected Member of Parliament for Tyrone North. He held the seat until 1892.^[2]

Hamilton was the author of several novels, two of which – The Outlaws of the March and The Mawkin of the Flow – are set on the Scottish Borders in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Another novel, Mary Hamilton, is based on the ballad of the same name.

In the period after the First World War Hamilton published several historical works, notably The Soul of Ulster, arguing that Ulster Protestants are descended from Scottish Border Reivers transplanted to Ulster by James I and VI, and equating the 1641 massacre of planters by Irish Catholic rebels with later Irish nationalist movements.

In the 1920s Hamilton supported the British Fascists ^[3] led by Rotha Lintorn-Orman, but he resigned from the movement when Linorn-Orman refused to co-operate with the Conservative government in resisting the 1926 general Strike.

Hamilton was brought up as an Evangelical Anglican. His religious views are expressed in INVOLUTION, a book which denounces the theological concept of sacrificial atonement and argues that Jesus was a purely ethical teacher. Hamilton argues that Marcionism was the correct interpretation of Jesus' message and that the God of the Old Testament is a personification of the Jewish national character, which he describes in highly anti-semitic terms.

Hamilton married Pamela Campbell (d. 1931) in 1891. She was a granddaughter of Sir Guy Campbell, 1st Baronet by his son Capt. Frederick Augustus Campbell (1839–1916). They had two sons and two daughters:

• Guy Ernest Frederick Hamilton (1894–1914), who died unmarried.
• Mary Brenda Hamilton (1897–1985), who in 1922 married the Lt.-Col. of the Scots Guards, Alphonse de Chimay, Prince de Chimay, Comte de Caraman (d. 1973). Their only child and daughter is the widow of Hugh Seymour, 8th Marquess of Hertford.
• Jean Barbara Hamilton (b. 1898), who in 1921 became the first wife of Sir John Buchanan-Jardine, 3rd Baronet (1900–1969). They were divorced in 1944 and had one child and son.
• John George Peter Hamilton (1900–1967), who in 1932 married Alexandra Christine Egerton (d. 1963), daughter of William Egerton from Kimberley, South Africa. They had no issue.

Ancestry

Ancestors of Lord Ernest Hamilton

16. Captain The Hon. John Hamilton               8. John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn                       17. Harriet Craggs               4. James Hamilton, Viscount Hamilton                             18. Sir Joseph Copley, 1st Baronet               9. Catherine Copley                       19. Mary Buller               2. James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn                                   20. James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton               10. The Hon. John Douglas                       21. Bridget Heathcote               5. Harriet Douglas                             22. Edward Lascelles, 1st Earl of Harewood               11. Lady Frances Lascelles                       23. Anne Chaloner               1. Lord Ernest Hamilton                                         24. John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford               12. Francis Russell, Marquess of Tavistock                       25. The Hon. Gertrude Leveson-Gower               6. John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford                             26. Willem van Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle               13. Lady Elizabeth Keppel                       27. Lady Anne Lennox               3. Lady Louisa Jane Russell                                   28. Cosmo Gordon, 3rd Duke of Gordon               14. Alexander Gordon, 4th Duke of Gordon                       29. Lady Catherine Gordon               7. Lady Georgina Gordon                             30. Sir William Maxwell, 3rd Baronet of Monreith, Wigtownshire               15. Jane Maxwell                       31. Magdalen Blair

References

1. Debretts Guide to the House of Commons 1886
2. Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Lord Ernest Hamilton
3. Hoare, Philip (4 July 2014). "Ivor Novello and Noël Coward's flirtation with fascism". Guardian.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Ernest Hamilton