Anthony Hamilton (Archdeacon of Colchester)

Anthony Hamilton, 1806 engraving

Anthony Hamilton (1739–1812) was an English Anglican priest, archdeacon of Colchester from 1775.^[1][2]

Life

His father Alexander Hamilton was the fifth son of William Hamilton the antiquarian, who died in 1724;^[3] he married the heiress Charlotte Styles, and so acquired the Essex manor of Holyfield (Hallifield), in the north-east of the parish of Waltham Abbey. It remained in the family into the 19th century.^[4] The Hamilton family owned also the Debden Hall farm and estate (see Debden House).^[5] The owner of Debden Hall Was Alex. Hamilton on a map of 1777.^[6]

Venn's Alumni Cantabrigienses proposes the identification of Alexander Hamilton as the London solicitor of the name.^[1] He moved to Loughton, transferring the remains of Charlotte and three children to be reburied there in 1744.^[7]

Anthony Hamilton was a younger son of the marriage.^[8] He was educated at Harrow School and entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1755. He graduated B.A. there in 1760, M.A. in 1763, and D.D. in 1775.^[1]

Ordained deacon in 1762 and priest 1763, Hamilton became vicar of Fulham, and then in 1766 of Orsett in Essex. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1773, and of the Royal Society in 1777.^[1][9] In 1770, on the death of John Jortin, Hamilton became Archdeacon of London; in 1775 he gave up the post, to become Archdeacon of London.^[10]

In 1776 Hamilton became rector of Much Hadham in Hertfordshire, and gave up his Fulham living; he became also vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields.^[1][11] In the 1790s he lived at 16 Savile Row, London.^[12] He was buried at Loughton, with memorials set up in the Much Hadham and Little Hadham churches.^[7]

Family

Hamilton married Anne Terrick, daughter of Richard Terrick; William Richard Hamilton was their son.^[13] Anthony Hamilton the Archdeacon of Taunton was their second son, and the father of Bishop Walter Hamilton.^[14]

Notes