Lord Ernest Hamilton

{{Short description|British Army officer and politician (1858–1939)}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Lord Ernest Hamilton

| image = Lord Ernest Hamilton, Elliott & Fry.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Lord Ernest Hamilton by Elliott & Fry

| office1 = Member of Parliament for Tyrone North

| term1 = 1885–1892

| party = Conservative

| otherparty = British Fascists (until 1926)

| birth_date = {{birth date|1858|09|05|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Tunbridge Wells, Kent

| death_date = {{death date and age|1939|12|14|1858|09|05|df=yes}}

| death_place = Belgravia, London

| father = James Hamilton

| mother = Louisa Russell

| relatives = Louisa Hamilton (sister)
James Hamilton (brother)
George Hamilton (brother)
Albertha Hamilton (sister)
Maud Hamilton (sister)
Frederick Hamilton (brother)
Claud Hamilton (brother)

| spouse = {{marriage|Pamela Campbell|1891|1931|end=d.}}

| children = 4

| module =

{{Infobox military person

| embed = yes

| rank = Captain

| unit = 11th Hussars

}}}}

Lord Ernest William Hamilton (5 September 1858 – 14 December 1939) was a British aristocrat, soldier, author, and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1892.{{cite news |title= Obituary: Lord Ernest Hamilton – Books of History and Fiction|work=The Times |publisher=The Times Digital Archive |date=15 December 1939 |page= 11}}

Early life and family

File:Lord Frederick Hamilton; Lord Ernest Hamilton, 1862 (cropped).jpg]]

Hamilton was born at Chancellor House, Tunbridge Wells,{{cite news |title= Births |work=The Times |publisher=The Times Digital Archive |date=7 September 1858 |page= 1}} 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.[https://archive.org/stream/debrettshouseo1886londuoft Debretts Guide to the House of Commons 1886]

His elder brothers James, Marquess of Hamilton; Lord George Hamilton, Lord Claud Hamilton, and Lord Frederick Hamilton were also Conservative MPs. All seven of his sisters married into the peerage, including Louisa, Duchess of Buccleuch; Albertha, Duchess of Marlborough; and Maud Petty-Fitzmaurice, Marchioness of Lansdowne.

Career

In the 1885 general election, Lord Ernest was elected Member of Parliament for Tyrone North. He held the seat until 1892.{{hansard-contribs | lord-ernest-hamilton | Lord Ernest Hamilton }}

Lord Ernest was the author of several novels, two of which, The Outlaws of the Marches 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.{{cn|date=August 2024}}

In the 1920s, Lord Ernest supported the British Fascists{{cite news|last1=Hoare|first1=Philip|title=Ivor Novello and Noël Coward's flirtation with fascism|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/04/ivor-novello-noel-coward-fascism|work=The Guardian|date=4 July 2014}} led by Rotha Lintorn-Orman, but he resigned from the movement when Lintorn-Orman refused to co-operate with the Conservative government in resisting the 1926 general strike.

Lord Ernest 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.{{cn|date=August 2024}}

Personal life

Lord Ernest 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), Royal Equerry to Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll.{{cite news |title=Death of Lady Ernest Hamilton |work=The Times |publisher=The Times Digital Archive |date=13 May 1931 |page=18 }} They had two sons and two daughters:

Guy Ernest Frederick Hamilton (1894–1914), who died by suicide, unmarried, early in the First World War. He had lost his commission in the Naval Brigade, which according to his father, was because "his intense anxiousness to be at the front brought on nervous trouble." He shot himself in the chest days before he was to go to the Sandhurst.{{cite news |title= Death of Lord Ernest Hamilton's Son |work=The Times |publisher=The Times Digital Archive |date=25 November 1914 |page=5 }}
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, Pamela Therese Louise de Riquet married the 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 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.

His wife died in 1931.

He was the last surviving of the Duke of Abercorn's sons when he died in 1939 at Chesham Place.