British politician
Lord George Francis Hamilton GCSI PC JP (17 December 1845 – 22 September 1927) was a British Conservative Party politician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who served as First Lord of the Admiralty and Secretary of State for India.
Background
Hamilton was the third son of James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn and Lady Louisa, daughter of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, and was educated at Harrow. He served with the Rifle Brigade and Coldstream Guards, achieving the rank of lieutenant.
Political career
Hamilton was Member of Parliament for Middlesex between 1868 and 1885 and for Ealing between 1885 and 1906. He served under Benjamin Disraeli as Under-Secretary of State for India from 1874 to 1878 and as Vice-President of the Committee on Education from 1878 to 1880 and was sworn of the Privy Council in 1878.
He entered the cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty under Lord Salisbury in 1885, a post he held until 1886 and again between 1886 and 1892. In 1894 he was elected as Chairman of the London School Board, standing down after one year when the Unionists won the general election and he became Secretary of State for India under Salisbury, which he remained until 1903, the last year under the premiership of Arthur Balfour. He was appointed a Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India (GCSI) in the 1903 Durbar Honours.[1][2]
In 1916 he was part of the Mesopotamia Commission of Inquiry.
Other public appointments
For a number of years, Hamilton was a member of the board of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) which ran the majority of London's Underground lines. He served as the company's chairman between 1915 and 1919, following the resignation of Sir Edgar Speyer in 1915.[3][4]
Hamilton also held the honorary posts of Captain of Deal Castle (1899–1923) and Major of Deal (1909) and received the degree of honorary LLD from Glasgow University and of honorary DCL from the University of Oxford. He was also a Justice of Peace for Middlesex and Westminster. Hamilton was a Founder of the London School Board Masonic Lodge No. 2611 in 1896
He was also President of the Royal Statistical Society from 1910 to 1912 and from 1915 to 1916.[5]
Family and children
Hamilton married Lady Maud Caroline, daughter of Henry Lascelles, 3rd Earl of Harewood, in 1871. They had three sons:
- Ronald James Hamilton OBE (1872–1958), who fought in the First World War, was wounded and in 1919 invested an OBE. He was awarded with the decoration of the Order of the Crown (Belgium). He served as First Secretary in the Diplomatic Service. In 1915 he married Florence Marguerite (Sarah Brooke) Hanna (d. 1959). They had one daughter:
- Major Anthony George Hamilton (1874–1936), who fought in the First World War with the East Kent Regiment. He died unmarried and without issue.
- Vice-Admiral Robert Cecil Hamilton (1882–1947), who fought in the First World War. In 1911 he married Edith Maud Paley (d. 1967), daughter of the barrister Algernon Herbert Paley.
Hamilton died in September 1927, aged 81. His wife survived him by eleven years and died in April 1938.
