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In this Year of
the Sea, when we will hear so much of Nelson and his greatness, spare a
thought for Sir William Hamilton, the hapless husband of the admiral’s
paramour. Today, he is so much in Nelson’s shadow that, insofar as we think
of him at all, we think of him only as Emma Hamilton’s husband. But he was
nearing the end of an active life before he even met Emma, and was, in his
own time, a renowned diplomat and antiquary.
Hamilton was born in 1730, the son of Lord Archibald Hamilton of Riccarton,
Midlothian. As a grandson of the Duke of Hamilton, he came of a family of
immense wealth and grandeur. His father, a sometime Governor of Jamaica,
Member of Parliament and lord of the admiralty, led an unusually useful life
for a man of his time and class. Educated at Glasgow University, he went on
to study under the Astronomer Royal, and spent much of his life as an active
naval officer. Although he was nearly sixty when William was born, it seems
he passed both his interest in science and his methodical mind to his son.
William married Catherine Barlow, a wealthy heiress, in 1758, and inherited
her estate when she died in 1782. This, together with his own family
background, is significant in that it provided him with the financial
security which meant he could indulge his passion for collecting. Following
service in the army, he entered the diplomatic service and became Ambassador
to
Naples in 1764, a post he retained for 36 years.
William
was in his element there. The age of the Grand Tour was at its height, when
young men (of sufficiently wealthy provenance) travelled
Europe
to complete their education, spending copiously on art and antiquities on
their way through
Italy.
It was also the period of the Enlightenment, when people began to question
received wisdom and enquire into the way the world worked. In both
respects, Hamilton was a man of his time, and with his artistic sensitivity
and scientific curiosity, he entered enthusiastically into the spirit of it.
He
sold his first collection to the
British Museum in 1772 and much of it can be seen today in the Enlightenment
Room there. He was involved in the excavation of Pompeii and one of the
first to ensure that archaeologists recorded the location of their finds
before artefacts were removed – he is still regarded as one of the fathers
of archaeology. His enquiring mind was not restricted to the past, though;
for example, he made scientific observations of Vesuvius and Etna,
publishing a series of essays on volcanoes in 1782.
At
the same time, he was writing extensively on Greek and Roman antiquities.
In 1766, he opened a tomb at
Trebbia
near Capua. Methodical as ever, he carefully drew its contents, measured
its dimensions and mapped it before anything was removed. He made a cork
model of the whole thing; these models, which are known as ‘corks’ and have
nothing to do with the things that go into bottles, became the standard
modelling technique for recording this type of site. Among the contents was
a wine mixing bowl, or krater, dating from 440–420 BC. The design of the
krater was significant. It showed a symposium in ancient
Greece.
The Greek script on it led Hamilton to question its supposed Etruscan
origin. Thus William Hamilton became the first to realise that large
numbers of the painted vases found in
Italy
were, in fact, Greek. He pioneered the method of recording 3D designs on
these artefacts by transferring them to 2D. This method can be seen to
spectacular effect in Baron d’Hancarville’s monumental work, Etruscan,
Greek and Roman Antiquities which was commissioned by Hamilton and
published between 1767 and 1776.
His
influence on the arts can be seen to this day. At this time, Josiah
Wedgwood had just perfected the formula for jasperware. It was
Hamilton’s
collection of cameos and intaglios which inspired early jasperware design,
and incidentally, much of the architect Robert Adam’s plasterwork.
During his lifetime,
Hamilton achieved the recognition of his achievements which has been denied
him by posterity. He was knighted in 1772, became a privy councillor in
1791, was a DCL of Oxford University and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He
died in 1803, widely recognised as a major Enlightenment figure and remains
a distinguished Merton resident we can remember with pride.
Alan
Hay
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