1858; Logic, 1860); and Additional Notes to Reid’s Works, from Sir
W. Hamilton’s MSS., under the editorship of H. L. Mansel, D.D.
(1862). A Memoir of Sir W. Hamilton, by Veitch, appeared in 1869.
HAMILTON, WILLIAM GERARD (1729–1796), English
statesman, popularly known as “Single Speech Hamilton,” was
born in London on the 28th of January 1729, the son of a Scottish
bencher of Lincoln’s Inn. He was educated at Winchester and
at Oriel College, Oxford. Inheriting his father’s fortune he
entered political life and became M.P. for Petersfield, Hampshire.
His maiden speech, delivered on the 13th of November 1755,
during the debate on the address, which excited Walpole’s
admiration, is generally supposed to have been his only effort
in the House of Commons. But the nickname “Single Speech”
is undoubtedly misleading, and Hamilton is known to have
spoken with success on other occasions, both in the House of
Commons and in the Irish parliament. In 1756 he was appointed
one of the commissioners for trade and plantations, and in 1761
he became chief secretary to Lord Halifax, the lord-lieutenant
of Ireland, as well as Irish M. P. for Killebegs and English M. P.
for Pontefract. He was chancellor of the exchequer in Ireland
in 1763, and subsequently filled various other administrative
offices. Hamilton was thought very highly of by Dr Johnson,
and it is certain that he was strongly opposed to the British
taxation of America. He died in London on the 16th of July
1796, and was buried in the chancel vault of St
Martin’s-in-the-fields.
Two of his speeches in the Irish House of Commons, and some other miscellaneous works, were published after his death under the title Parliamentary Logick.
HAMILTON, SIR WILLIAM ROWAN (1805–1865), Scottish
mathematician, was born in Dublin on the 4th of August 1805.
His father, Archibald Hamilton, who was a solicitor, and his
uncle, James Hamilton (curate of Trim), migrated from Scotland
in youth. A branch of the Scottish family to which they belonged
had settled in the north of Ireland in the time of James I., and
this fact seems to have given rise to the common impression that
Hamilton was an Irishman.
His genius first displayed itself in the form of a wonderful power of acquiring languages. At the age of seven he had already made very considerable progress in Hebrew, and before he was thirteen he had acquired, under the care of his uncle, who was an extraordinary linguist, almost as many languages as he had years of age. Among these, besides the classical and the modern European languages, were included Persian, Arabic, Hindustani, Sanskrit and even Malay. But though to the very end of his life he retained much of the singular learning of his childhood and youth, often reading Persian and Arabic in the intervals of sterner pursuits, he had long abandoned them as a study, and employed them merely as a relaxation.
His mathematical studies seem to have been undertaken and carried to their full development without any assistance whatever, and the result is that his writings belong to no particular “school,” unless indeed we consider them to form, as they are well entitled to do, a school by themselves. As an arithmetical calculator he was not only wonderfully expert, but he seems to have occasionally found a positive delight in working out to an enormous number of places of decimals the result of some irksome calculation. At the age of twelve he engaged Zerah Colburn, the American “calculating boy,” who was then being exhibited as a curiosity in Dublin, and he had not always the worst of the encounter. But, two years before, he had accidentally fallen in with a Latin copy of Euclid, which he eagerly devoured; and at twelve he attacked Newton’s Arithmetica universalis. This was his introduction to modern analysis. He soon commenced to read the Principia, and at sixteen he had mastered a great part of that work, besides some more modern works on analytical geometry and the differential calculus.
About this period he was also engaged in preparation for entrance at Trinity College, Dublin, and had therefore to devote a portion of his time to classics. In the summer of 1822, in his seventeenth year, he began a systematic study of Laplace’s Mécanique Céleste. Nothing could be better fitted to call forth such mathematical powers as those of Hamilton; for Laplace’s great work, rich to profusion in analytical processes alike novel and powerful, demands from the most gifted student careful and often laborious study. It was in the successful effort to open this treasure-house that Hamilton’s mind received its final temper, “Dès-lors il commença à marcher seul,” to use the words of the biographer of another great mathematician. From that time he appears to have devoted himself almost wholly to original investigation (so far at least as regards mathematics), though he ever kept himself well acquainted with the progress of science both in Britain and abroad.
Having detected an important defect in one of Laplace’s demonstrations, he was induced by a friend to write out his remarks, that they might be shown to Dr John Brinkley (1763–1835), afterwards bishop of Cloyne, but who was then the first royal astronomer for Ireland, and an accomplished mathematician. Brinkley seems at once to have perceived the vast talents of young Hamilton, and to have encouraged him in the kindest manner. He is said to have remarked in 1823 of this lad of eighteen: “This young man, I do not say will be, but is, the first mathematician of his age.”
Hamilton’s career at College was perhaps unexampled. Amongst a number of competitors of more than ordinary merit, he was first in every subject and at every examination. He achieved the rare distinction of obtaining an optime for both Greek and for physics. How many more such honours he might have attained it is impossible to say; but he was expected to win both the gold medals at the degree examination, had his career as a student not been cut short by an unprecedented event. This was his appointment to the Andrews professorship of astronomy in the university of Dublin, vacated by Dr Brinkley in 1827. The chair was not exactly offered to him, as has been sometimes asserted, but the electors, having met and talked over the subject, authorized one of their number, who was Hamilton’s personal friend, to urge him to become a candidate, a step which his modesty had prevented him from taking. Thus, when barely twenty-two, he was established at the Observatory, Dunsink, near Dublin. He was not specially fitted for the post, for although he had a profound acquaintance with theoretical astronomy, he had paid but little attention to the regular work of the practical astronomer. And it must be said that his time was better employed in original investigations than it would have been had he spent it in observations made even with the best of instruments,—infinitely better than if he had spent it on those of the observatory, which, however good originally, were then totally unfit for the delicate requirements of modern astronomy. Indeed there can be little doubt that Hamilton was intended by the university authorities who elected him to the professorship of astronomy to spend his time as he best could for the advancement of science, without being tied down to any particular branch. Had he devoted himself to practical astronomy they would assuredly have furnished him with modern instruments and an adequate staff of assistants.
In 1835, being secretary to the meeting of the British Association which was held that year in Dublin, he was knighted by the lord-lieutenant. But far higher honours rapidly succeeded, among which we may merely mention his election in 1837 to the president’s chair in the Royal Irish Academy, and the rare distinction of being made corresponding member of the academy of St Petersburg. These are the few salient points (other, of course, than the epochs of his more important discoveries and inventions presently to be considered) in the uneventful life of this great man. He retained his wonderful faculties unimpaired to the very last, and steadily continued till within a day or two of his death, which occurred on the 2nd of September 1865, the task (his Elements of Quaternions) which had occupied the last six years of his life.
The germ of his first great discovery was contained in one of those early papers which in 1823 he communicated to Dr Brinkley, by whom, under the title of “Caustics,” it was presented in 1824 to the Royal Irish Academy. It was referred as usual to a committee. Their report, while acknowledging the novelty and value of its
