Hamilton, SIR WILLIAM

Hamilton, SIR WILLIAM, grandson of the third Duke of Hamilton, was born in 1730, and in 1758, after eleven years' service in the Foot Guards, married a beautiful Pembrokeshire heiress, with £5000 a year, who died in 1782, an only daughter having predeceased her. He was British ambassador at the court of Naples from 1764 till 1800, and in 1772 was made a knight of the Bath. During his residence in Italy he took an active part in the excavation of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and formed a rare collection of antiquities, which was afterwards purchased for the British Museum. He was author of several sumptuous works—Antiquités Etrusques, Grecques, et Romaines, tirés du cabinet de M. Hamilton (4 vols. Naples, 1766–67); Observations on Mount Vesuvius (1772); Campi Phlegræi (Naples, 1776–77), &c. He died 6th April 1803. See HAMILTON (EMMA, LADY).