William Richard Hamilton
William Richard Hamilton, FRS, (1777–1859) was a British antiquarian, traveller and diplomat. He was son of Rev. Anthony Hamilton, Archdeacon of Colchester and Anne, daughter of Richard Terrick, Bishop of London.
In 1799 he was appointed chief private secretary to Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin. He was in Egypt as the British took it over from the French, and secured the Rosetta Stone[1]. After a voyage up the Nile, he wrote a well-known work of Egyptology[2].
From 1809 to 1822 Hamilton served as Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and from 1822 to 1825 he was Minister and Envoy Plenipotentiary at the Kingdom of Naples. In 1830 he succeeded Sir Thomas Lawrence as Secretary of the Society of Dilettanti, a post which he held until his death in 1859.
The geologist William John Hamilton was his son.
Notes
- ^ http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/4482/Rosetta.html&date=2009-10-25+11:24:57
- ^ Remarks on Several Parts of Turkey, Part 1: Aegyptica or Some Account of the Ancient and Modern State of Egypt Obtained in the Years 1801-02, (1809)
