William John Hamilton

William John Hamilton, FRS (5 July 1805 – 27 June 1867) was an English geologist born in Wishaw, Lanarkshire.

He was the son of William Richard Hamilton, FRS (1777–1859) and was educated at Charterhouse School and the University of Göttingen.

He became a fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1831. In 1835 he made a geological tour of the Levant with Hugh Edwin Strickland, continuing on his own through Armenia and across Asia Minor. This journey was described in Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus, and Armenia (1842). Hamilton was the first known person to have successfully climbed Mount Erciyes.

He was a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Newport, Isle of Wight from 1841 to 1847.

Hamilton was president of the Royal Geographical Society for 1848-49 and of the Geological Society between 1854 and 1866. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1855.

He made excursions in France and Belgium and wrote on the rocks and minerals of Tuscany, the agate quarries of Oberstein, and on the geology of the Mayence basin and the Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) district.

He died in London in 1867. He had married secondly Margaret Dillon, the daughter of Henry Dillon, 13th Viscount Dillon. His son Alexander Charles successfully claimed the title of 10th Lord Belhaven and Stenton.

References

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• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by William John Blake Charles Wykeham Martin	Member of Parliament for Newport 1841 – 1847 With: John Heywood Hawkins	Succeeded by William Plowden Charles Wykeham Martin