William Hamilton

• Death Notes
  • ftom: "The Scots peerage : founded on Wood's ed. of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland; containing an historical and genealogical account of the nobility of that kingdom" (1904-1914)
    
    "The Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton, born in Lincoln's
    Inn Fields, 28 January 1729 ; elected M.P. for Petersfield on
    a vacancy 1754, and re-elected at the general election in the
    same year; for Pontefract 1762, for Old Sarum 1768, for
    Wareham 1774, for Wilton 1780 and 1784, and for Hasle-
    mere 1790; was in eight successive Parliaments, and sat
    forty-two years in the House of Commons. He also sat
    in the Irish Parliament for the borough of Killebegs 1761-68.
    Appointed one of the Commissioners of Trade and Planta-
    tions 1756 ; Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of
    Ireland 1761; Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland
    1763-84; Privy Councillor in Ireland, and had a pension of
    2000 a year on the Irish establishment. His famous maiden
    speech in the debate on the Address, 13 November 1755,
    earned him the name of ' Single-speech Hamilton.' It was
    to him that Dr. Johnson paid the ponderous compliment :
    * I am very unwilling to be left alone, sir, and therefore I
    go with my company down the first pair of stairs, in some
    hopes that they may, perhaps, return again. I go with you,
    sir, as far as the street door.' He died unmarried in London,
    16 July 1796"