Biography

Thomas Hamilton junior was born in Glasgow on 11 January 1784. His father, Thomas senior was a mason and had married Jean Stevenson, in the Canongate Church in Edinburgh the previous year and moved to the capital in 1791. He built a house at 166 High Street, which still stands today having survived the great fire of 1824. His brother John Hamilton, a wright, seems to have been living in the City before this and was engaged from 1795 in speculative building in Castle Street. Together John and Thomas senior went on to build houses in Heriot Row, Charlotte Square, Melville Street and York Place. They also became involved in work for the City, repairing St Giles Church, Greyfriars church and classrooms in the Old College of the University. The family moved to 47 Princes Street in the fashionable New Town and Thomas junior was sent to the High School where the greatest influence was the Rector Alexander Adam, a noted classical scholar. Jean Stevenson, Hamilton’s mother, must have died at some date before December 1804 for his father, remarried to Margaret McAra, had Thomas junior and John Hamilton witness the birth of their third child in July 1808. Thomas senior styled himself ‘builder’ which suggests that John may have taken the young man on as his assistant. In 1812, the year in which his uncle died, Thomas junior had moved from this parents’ house to Simpsons Court, Potterrow. He shared a common stair with the builder, George Anderson and a Mrs Dickson. Perhaps it was one of Mrs Dickson’s daughters, Ann Richardson Dickson that Hamilton married on 6 October 1813 and the same George Anderson who built Nos. 10-11 Claremont Park in Leith some ten years later with assistance from Hamilton who was then designing other houses in the same row. Hamilton’s marriage must have been planned for some time because he and his new wife together inherited the lion’s share of John Hamilton’s modest fortune. The estate was largely in the form of property on the corner of Heriot Row and Dundas Street, which it is known Hamilton let and eventually sold. There is also evidence that the architect involved himself in the risky business of building speculation, to which his father would fall victim, bankrupting him in 1822. Plans of 1816 in Hamilton’s name for two houses in Albany Street, Edinburgh lie in the Dean of Guild Court and in 1822 he offered a property in Hart Street for sale. Hamilton’s first success, which established his architectural reputation, was winning the competition to build the Burns Monument at Alloway in 1818. After an unsuccessful attempt to become Superintendent of Public Works for Edinburgh in 1819, Hamilton became Surveyor to the Norwich Union Insurance Company, a position he held for two years. He seems to have been involved with Shaws Hospital at this time too, as a feuing plan for lands at Prestonpans dated March 1821 reveals, although none of this scheme appears to have been erected. In 1822, an event occurred which had a great effect on the young architect. Hugh ‘Grecian’ Williams, who had travelled extensively in Italy, Sicily and Greece, mounted an exhibition of his work, in the form of large watercolours painted during his travels. The paintings of the buildings on the Acropolis no doubt fascinated Hamilton, especially those of the Propylaea and the Erecthion. Before he became involved in the major projects of his forties, the High School, the Edinburgh Improvement Acts, the Assembly Rooms, Ayr and the foundation with others, of the Scottish Academy, Hamilton had begun to build up a solid practice in business conversions. His shop fronts for James Spittal in the Cowgate, a bookshop for William Blackwood in George Street and the dramatic interiors designed for the Hopetoun Rooms, are only a small part of a largely unrecognised body work. There was a lull in his work after the completion of the High School, not helped by the almost total slump in building activity in his native city, which lasted well into the 1850s, and continued acrimonious disputes with the City Council about the cost of the High School. Only the Disruption of the Free Church in 1843 provided a welcome boost and Hamilton was in constant demand as an arbiter of taste – a fact we may find surprising today, in view of his obvious difficulties with the Gothic style. In September 1834 Earl Grey toured Scotland to be feted by the population for his part in the passage of the Reform Act. Hamilton was asked to design a pavilion for the Dinner given in Grey’s honour on 15 September 1834. (www.imagesonline.bl.uk) The most remarkable feature of this structure, in wood and painted canvas, was the time in which it was erected and removed from its site in the grounds of the Royal High School. Work began on 2 September; on the 12th a 500 burner gasolier from the Theatre Royal was placed in the pavilion (left burning overnight to dry the elaborate painted decoration by David Ramsay Hay and David Roberts!) and on Monday 22 September, the whole structure was removed. Only one indication of its passing remains today in a suite of elegant oak veneer chairs provided by Messrs Allardice and Sclanders and stamped A.S. These were until recently part of the furnishings of the High School. Hamilton was elected a Fellow of the Institute of British Architects in June 1836, after giving a paper on the construction of the Pavilion. Hamilton continued to find work with middle-class merchants throughout the period of slack building, but to a lesser extent than previously. Typical projects for this period include the fine Regency façade in the manner of John Nash, built for Andrew Melrose the Tea Merchant at 93 George Street in 1833-34 and in 1837 a new shop front at 19 Princes Street. But his most interesting commision at this time was the Royal College of Physicians in Queen Street, Edinburgh - the only other building by Hamilton to approach the ingenuity of the High School. Peter Hamilton returned to Edinburgh in 1845 and worked with his father on a number of projects including a new church at Kinghorn (1852), which was not built, additions to Dunbeath Castle in Caithness (1857) and Watt’s Hospital, Leith (1858-62), the last two completed by Peter on his father’s death in 1858. Hamilton himself undertook the controversial ‘restoration’ of South Leith Parish Church (1847) engaging in spirited correspondence with antiquary Daniel Wilson on the front page of The Scotsman, and also alterations, mainly to the ceiling of Kennoway Parish Church, Fife (1850). Peter Hamilton, before his premature death aged 44 in 1861, undertook work on his own account. He built Leith Hospital (1850) restored Coldingham Priory (1852) and undertook interesting alterations on No.52 Queen Street for Dr. James Young Simpson (1857). Hamilton died on 24 February 1858, after a few days illness and was buried in Calton Graveyard in the lair of his uncle, John Hamilton, a short distance from his greatest work, the Royal High School.