Patrick Comerford
As I was walking through the cloisters in Durham Cathedral during my recent visit, I noticed a plaque commemorating George Hans Hamilton (1823-1903), who was Archdeacon of Lindisfarne (1865-1882), Archdeacon of Northumberland (1882-1905), and a Canon of Durham Cathedral.
The plaque caught my attention because his name indicated and the fading coat-of-arms on the memorial indicated, to me at least, not only that Archdeacon Hamilton was Irish but that he was part of the Hamilton family who are closely identified with both Balbriggan and Skerries in north Co Dublin.
I have been familiar with both towns since my schooldays, until recently I regularly went for walks on the beach in Skerries, and I often did Sunday duty in Holmpatrick Church, Skerries, and Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan.
There is a large monument to one branch of the Hamilton family in the centre of Skerries, and some memorial tablets from an older church that have survived in the new church when it was being built in the 1860s.
One curious monument to the memory of James Hamilton of Sheepshill and Holmpatrick reads in part: ‘A gentleman who during a long and most active life displayed that zealous energy and ingenious integrity that forms a useful and virtuous man … He died the 20th of October 1800, in the 73rd year of his age … Of the uncommonly numerous offspring of thirty six children he was survived by eight sons and eight daughters.’
James Hamilton’s descendants include Richard Branson. However, with 36 children born over 200 years ago, Hamilton must be the ancestor of thousands upon thousands of people today. But … 36 children? A most active life that displayed zealous energy indeed! Useful and virtuous? What about his poor wife or wives?
Archdeacon Hamilton, on the other hand, is directly related to the Balrothery and Balbriggan branch of the Hamilton family, and my search for his family background led to the discovery that he was also related to interesting Irish literary figures too.
The future archdeacon was born on 21 January 1823, the third son of Henry Hamilton (1780-1854) of Tullylish, Co Down, and a grandson of Hugh Hamilton (1729-1805), Bishop of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh (1795-1799) and then Bishop of Ossory (1799-1805).
Bishop Hugh Hamilton was born in Balrothery, near Balbriggan, Co Dublin, in 1725. He was an older brother of Judge George Hamilton (1732-1793) of Hampton, Balrothery, who was MP for Belfast and a Baron of the Exchequer. Judge Hamilton is remembered mainly for developing the town of Balbriggan. As part of the development of Balbriggan, he sold the Lower Mill to the business of Comerford and O’Brien in Balbriggan in the early 1780s. His son, the Revd George Hamilton built Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, in 1813.
The most elaborate memorial in Saint George’s Church recalls George Alexander Hamilton, who died on 17 September 1871. His wife Amelia Fancourt Hamilton is remembered on a similar memorial that says: ‘Her clothing and coal clubs were for many years a great benefit to the poor of this neighbourhood.’ It also mentions that she set up an infant school in 1836 at Hampton Gates.
The elaborate memorial to George Alexander Hamilton, who died in 1871 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)The Hamiltons were a clerical family with seemingly innumerable priests in the Church of Ireland. Bishop Hamilton was a Professor of Philosophy in Trinity College Dublin, Vicar of Saint Ann’s, Dublin, and Dean of Armagh before he became a bishop. Three of his sons were priests: Hans Hamilton of Knocktopher, Co Kilkenny, who fled Co Kilkenny during the ‘Tithe War’ in the 1830s; George Hamilton (1783-1830), of Killemogh, Co Laois, a Biblical scholar; and the Revd Hugh Hamilton (1790-1865) of Innishmacsaint, Co Fermanagh.
Another son of Bishop Hamilton, Henry Hamilton (1780-1854), grew up in Dublin, but lived much of his life in Tullylish, Co Down. As well as the archdeacon who is commemorated in Durham Cathedral, Henry Hamilton was the father of two other priests: the Revd Hugh Hamilton (1811-1884) of Dublin, and Canon William Alfred Hamilton (1824-1897), Rector of Taney, Dundrum, Co Dublin. His daughter Sarah was a doctor’s wife who lived in the family home, Hampton Hall, Balbriggan; her son, the Revd Rowland Scriven (1859-1944), was a curate in Balbriggan from 1898 until 1920, when he moved to England.
The Hamilton family was intermarried with many of the great literary figures in Ireland, and both John Millington Synge and CS Lewis are direct descendants of Bishop Hamilton.
Archdeacon George Hans Hamilton was a first cousin of the Revd Thomas Robert Hamilton, the first Rector of Saint Mark’s, Dundela, in Belfast, and the grandfather of CS Lewis.
The future archdeacon, George Hans Hamilton, was born on 21 January 1823, He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Trinity College, Dublin and was ordained in 1847.
After a time as a curate in Sunderland he became chaplain of Durham Prison and then Vicar of Berwick. He was chaplain to the High Sheriff of Durham in 1884.
Hamilton first married Arabella Sarah (Bella) Best on 9 May 1848. Her father John Best (1791-1825) was an accountant with the East India Company in Bombay; her mother Arabella née Robinson (1795-1855) was from Sunderland. Best seems to have spent much of his time travelling between Bombay and Sunderland. When he died in Bombay at the age of 33, he left a pregnant widow in India with four other children under the age of 10.
Bella Hamilton died in January 1868. She was the mother of two sons and a daughter: Hans Alfred Hamilton (born 1849), who seems to have been the ‘black sheep’ of the family; and Henry (Harry) Best Hans Hamilton (1850-1935); and Eliza Arabella Sarah (1858-1919), known as Ella.
Soon after Bella’s death, Hamilton married his second wife Lady Louisa Frances Clements (1843-1939) in 1869. She was a sister of Robert Bermingham Clements (1847-1892), 4th Earl of Leitrim. The couple were the parents of another daughter and three more sons: George Francis Clements Hamilton (1870-1900); Robert Charles Clements Hamilton (1871-1901), a refrigeration engineer, who was killed in an explosion on the first refrigerated ship bringing bananas to Britain from the West Indies; Sir Collingwood George Clements Hamilton (1877-1947), an electrical engineer and Conservative politician; and Louisa Lindisfarne Clements (Hamilton) Maitland (1878-1952).
Hamilton was a great advocate of prison reform. His character was drawn upon by Charles Reade in It Is Never Too Late to Mend (1856). He was Archdeacon of Lindisfarne (1865-1882), Archdeacon of Northumberland (1882-1905), and a canon of Durham Cathedral. He died on 23 September 1905 – he was 80 and still in office; his widow, Lady Louisa Hamilton, died on 31 August 1939.
As for Archdeacon Hamilton’s first cousin, the Revd Thomas Hamilton, he baptised his grandson, Clive Staples Lewis, in Saint Mark’s Church, Dundela, on 29 January 1899.
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