James Hamilton (1724 - 1758)

Born 5 Jul 1724 in Great Tew, Oxfordshire, England

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 17 Jan 1758 at age 33 in Oxfordshire, England

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James Hamilton was a member of the aristocracy in British Isles.

Biography

James Hamilton, was born on 5 July 1724, the only child of James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Hamilton, and his first wife, Lady Anne Cochrane.^[1] and was baptised the following day at Canongate Church, Edinburgh.^[2] He held the courtesy title of Marquess of Clydesdale from birth.

He was educated at Winchester from 1734-1740 and matriculated at St Mary Hall, Oxford on 23 February 1740/41. He was created a Doctor of Civil Law (D.C.L.) of Oxford 14 April 1743, having succeeded his father as 6th Duke of Hamilton, and 3rd Duke of Brandon on 2 March 1742/43.^[3]

James Hamilton is described as "a man of letters could he have kept himself sober"^[4] and "hot, debauched, extravagant and ... damaged in his fortune and person".^[5] He seems to have fallen passionately for Elizabeth Gunning, the beautiful but penniless second daughter of Colonel John Gunning, of Castle Coote, county Roscommon, Ireland, and his wife, Hon. Bridget Bourke, when he met her at a masquerade ball at the King's Theatre in Haymarket on 16 or 18 January 1752.

About 4 weeks later, on 13 February, while her mother and sister were visiting Bedford House "he found himself so impatient, that he sent for a parson (possibly Andrew Trebeck), who refused to perform the ceremony without licence or ring: the Duke swore he would send for the Archbishop - at last they were married with a ring of the bed-curtain at half an hour after twelve at night [on 14th February] at Mayfair Chapel" (St George's Chapel, Hyde Park Corner, where clandestine marriages without a licence or banns or consent of parents were performed.)^[6]

They had 3 children;

1. Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, born 26 January 1753 at Holyrood House, Edinburgh, married 23 June 1774, as his first wife, Edward Smith-Stanley, later 12th Earl of Derby, and died 14 March 1797 having had issue;^[7]
2. James George Hamilton, born 18 February 1754 at Abbey of Holyrood House, Edinburgh, succeeded his father as 7th Duke of Hamilton 1758, and also as head of the line of Douglas, inheriting the titles of Marquess of Douglas, Earl of Angus, but died unmarried of fever 7 July 1769 at Hamilton Palace, and was buried at Hamilton;
3. Douglas Hamilton, born 24 July 1756 at Holyrood House, succeeded his brother as 8th Duke of Hamilton, 5th Duke of Brandon, Marquess of Douglas etc 1769, and died 2 August 1799 without any legitimate issue.^[8]

Death

This appears to be the same Sir James Hamilton that is Inscripted on the Monument...

James Hamilton died on 17 or 18 January 1758 at Great Tew, Oxfordshire, of a cold, caught while out hunting, and was buried at Hamilton in February 1758.^[9]

Burial: Hamilton Old Parish Churchyard, Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland

This may be a Cenotaph for one or all.

Inscription:

"MEMORIAM

Sir James Hamilton A_TER_ARMS James Lord Hamilton BORN ____

DIED: 12th NOV_ 1479

THE MOST HIGH AND PUISSANT PRINCE John Hamilton ST MARQUIS OF HAMILTON

3RD DUKE OF CHATELHERAULT BORN 1532 DIED AT HAMILTON 12TH APRIL 1607 (7?)

AGED 72 YEARS

THE MOST HIGH AND PUISSANT PRINCE JAMES 1ST DUKE OF HAMILTON, 6TH DUKE (?)

OF CHATELHERAULT . 2ND EARL OF CAMBRIDGE BORN AT HAMILTON 19TH JUNE 1608

BEHEADED IN PALAZE YARD 9TH MARCH 1649 AGED 43 YEARS

James Hamilton DUKE OF HAMILTON, BRANDON, CHATELHERAULT IN THE KINGDOM OF

FRANCE, WAS KILLED IN A DUEL IN HYDE PARK 15TH NOVEMBER 1712, IN THE 55TH

YEAR OF HIS AGE.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM Hamilton LORD HAMILTON, SECOND SON OF THE MOST

HIGH AND PUISSANT PRINCE James Hamilton DUKE OF HAMILTON, BRANDON AND

CHATELHERAULT DIED 11TH JULY 1734 IN THE 28TH YEAR OF HIS AGE

THE MOST HIGH AND PUISSANT PRINCE Sir James Hamilton, 5TH DUKE OF HAMILTON AND 9TH DUKE

CHATELHERAULT, 2ND DUKE OF BRANDON BORN 1702 DIED 1ST MARCH 1743

AGED 41 YEARS

THE MOST HIGH AND PUISSANT PRINCE Sir James Hamilton DUKE OF HAMILTON AND BRANDON  :AND CHATELHERAULT DIED AT _REAT REW AT OXFORDSHIRE 18TH JANUARY 1757

AGED 34 YEARS[1]

THE MOST HIGH AND PUISSANT PRINCE Sir James George Hamilton HAMILTON DUKE OF

HAMILTON, BRANDON AND CHATELHERAULT BORN AT HOLYBOND HOUSE 10TH FEBY

1755 DIED AT HAMILTON, 7TH JULY 1763

His widow, married secondly 3 February 1759 John Campbell, 5th Duke of Argyll, and had further issue with him.^[10]

Sources

1. ↑ Cokayne, vol. 6, p. 270; Paul, vol. 4, p. 393 has 10 July, but this is corrected in Vol. 9, p. 104 to 5 July
2. ↑ Scotland, Births and Baptisms 1564-1950
3. ↑ Cokayne, vol. 6, p. 270
4. ↑ Memoirs of Alexander Carlyle, quoted in Cokayne, vol. 6, p. 271, note b
5. ↑ Horace Walpole's correspondence, p. 302
6. ↑ Horace Walpole's correspondence, p. 302-303
7. ↑ Cokayne, vol. 4, p. 218-219
8. ↑ Cokayne, vol. 6, pp. 271-273
9. ↑ Cokayne, vol. 6, p. 271; Paul, vol. 4, has 18 January
10. ↑ Cokayne, vol. 6, p. 271

• Cokayne, George Edward, (1916), Complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct or dormant, 2nd ed., vol. 4 edited by Hon. Vicary Gibbs & H. Arthur Doubleday, London: The St. Catherine Press. Published in electronic form by ABC Publications, London, 2003.

• Cokayne, George Edward, (1926), The Complete Peerage: or a history of the House of Lords and all its members from the earliest times, 2nd ed., vol. 6, revised and enlarged by Hon. Vicary Gibbs, edited by H.A. Doubleday, Duncan Warrand & Lord Howard de Walden, London: St Catherine Press. Published in electronic form by ABC Publications, London, 2003.

• Paul, James Balfour (ed.), (1908), The Scots Peerage: founded on Wood's edition of Sir Robert Douglas's peerage of Scotland; containing an historical and genealogical account of the nobility of that kingdom, vol. 4, Edinburgh: David Douglas. Digitised by Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center, available at Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/scotspeeragefoun04paul : viewed 11 November 2015)

• Paul, James Balfour (ed.), (1914), The Scots Peerage: founded on Wood's edition of Sir Robert Douglas's peerage of Scotland; containing an historical and genealogical account of the nobility of that kingdom, vol. 9, Edinburgh: David Douglas. Digitised by Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center, available at Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/scotspeeragefoun09paul : viewed 11 November 2015)

• 'Scotland, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950,' database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XYWS-BWL : accessed 11 November 2015), James Duke Of Hamilton Hamilton, born 05 Jul 1724, baptised 06 July 1724; citing , reference 2:18N59T2; FHL microfilm 1,067,741.

• Walpole, Horace, (1960), The Yale edition of Horace Walpole's correspondence, vol. 20: Horace Walpole's correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, IV, edited by W.S. Lewis, Warren Hunting Smith and George L. Lam, New Haven: Yale University Press. Digitised by Lewis Walpole Library, Yale, 2011 (https://web.archive.org/web/20220110100234/http://images.library.yale.edu/hwcorrespondence/).

• Johnston, George Harvey. "The Douglases of Angus." The Heraldry of the Douglases: With Notes on All the Males of the Family, Descriptions of the Arms, Plates and Pedigrees. Edinburgh: W. & A.K. Johnston, Limited, 1907.47. Print.

See also: The Wikipedia article for James Hamilton, 6th Duke of Hamilton but note that it does have some errors and doesn't cite any sources.