Archibald Hamilton Rowan

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A. Hamilton Rowan

Archibald Hamilton Rowan (born May 1, 1751 in London as Archibald Hamilton , † November 1, 1834 in Killyleagh , County Down ; also Archibald Rowan Hamilton or Hamilton Rowan ) was an Irish nationalist and founding member of the Society of United Irishmen .

origin

Archibald Hamilton was born on May 1, 1751 in the house of his grandfather, William Rowan, in London, where he spent much of his childhood and youth. He was the son of Gawen Hamilton (1729-1805) and Lady Jane Rowan Hamilton , both of whom came from wealthy families of the Peerage of Ireland . When his grandfather died in 1767, he inherited his estate on the condition that he take his mother's name, study in Oxbridge and not go to Ireland before his 25th birthday . Accordingly, he entered Queens' College at Cambridge University in 1768 , but was temporarily excluded from studies in 1769 because he had tried to throw a tutor into the cam . He then attended Warrington Academy , a private business school in Lancashire , and from 1770 back to Jesus College in Cambridge.

After graduating from college, Rowan traveled to Europe, North and South America, and North Africa in the 1770s and 1780s. In the Thirteen Colonies he experienced the omens of the American Revolution , which would influence his later political activities.

In 1781, in Paris , Hamilton Rowan married Sarah Dawson, the daughter of one of his previous neighbors. The couple had ten children; one of his grandsons was the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865).

Society of United Irishmen

Hamilton Rowan first came to Ireland in 1784, where he bought an estate from Clane in County Kildare . In the same year he joined the Irish Volunteers of Killyleagh , who were under his father's command.

He first appeared in public in 1788 when he stood up for 14-year-old Mary Neal , who had been forced into prostitution in a Dublin brothel and was abused by Lord Carhampton . Rowan published a pamphlet A Brief Investigation of the Sufferings of John, Anne, and Mary Neal . In the course of the affair, he threatened his opponents in a Dublin club with dogs and his Shillelagh , which earned him public recognition as an advocate for the poor.

In 1790 Rowan joined the Northern Whig Club . In October of the same year he participated in the founding of the separatist-republican Society of United Irishmen and came into contact with Wolfe Tone and William Drennan , among others . As a prominent member of the Irish nobility , Hamilton Rowan was an important figure in society and also became the contact person for members of similar separatist currents from Scotland . In 1792 he was arrested while distributing separatist propaganda and charged with denigrating the state ( "seditious libel" ). Great Britain and Ireland took part in the First Coalition War against the French Revolution in 1793; the Society of United Irishmen was banned in 1794.

In 1793, Hamilton Rowan was sentenced to two years imprisonment and a fine of 2,500 pounds sterling for seditious libel . He began serving his sentence in Newgate Prison in Dublin in January 1794.

Treason, exile and pardon

While in custody, Hamilton Rowan met William Jackson, a Church of Ireland priest who worked as a spy for the French Welfare Committee . Jackson's mission was to investigate the possibility of an anti-English revolution and the French conquest of Ireland. In addition, he met in Hamilton Rowan's cell for talks with Wolfe Tone and other Irish separatists close to the Society.

When Jackson was exposed as a spy by the British and charged with treason , Hamilton Rowan fled Newgate Prison to avoid a treason trial: he persuaded his guard to visit his wife to sign documents. While the guard was sitting in Hamilton Rowan's living room, Hamilton Rowan rappelled out of his bedroom window, mounted a horse provided for him, and fled to Ireland's south coast, where he rented a boat to France. On his arrival in France he was arrested as a British spy and interrogated by Robespierre , who found him innocent and released him. Rowan moved to Paris, where he met Mary Wollstonecraft , with whom he remained friends for the rest of her life.

After the coup of Thermidorians Hamilton Rowan witnessed the execution of Robespierre and his followers and thus came to the conclusion that France was too dangerous for him. He therefore went to Philadelphia , which was then the capital of the United States . Disappointed by the Irish exiled there, he soon left the city and settled on the Brandywine River in Delaware .

During his American exile, Hamilton Rowan began to write his memoirs , in which he expressed his fear that he would never be able to return to Ireland. Due to the efforts of his wife, however, he was allowed to enter a neutral European country in 1799. He then moved to Hamburg , where he lived with his wife and children until 1803. In 1803 he was pardoned and was allowed to return to England from 1803. After the death of his father in 1805, he was allowed to stay in Ireland again from 1806.

Next life

Killyleagh Castle

Hamilton Rowan returned to his family ancestry at Killyleagh Castle in County Down in 1806 . He was still politically active and often traveled to Dublin for political events. After his last public appearance on January 10, 1829, he was carried through the streets of Dublin by the public.

After the death of his wife in February 1834 and his eldest son Gawen William Rowan Hamilton in August of the same year, Hamilton Rowan died on November 1, 1834 at Killyleagh Castle. His grave is in St. Mary's Church in Dublin.

Hamilton Rowan never completed his memoirs during his lifetime. After his death, his family gave the papers to his friend Thomas Kennedy Lowrey , who in turn gave them to William Hamilton Drummond , who published the completed autobiography in 1840.

literature

  • Archibald Hamilton Rowan: The Autobiography of Archibald Hamilton Rowan. Irish University Press, Shannon 1972.
  • Harold George Nicolson: The Desire to Please, A Story of Hamilton Rowan and the United Irishmen. Harcourt, Brace, New York 1943.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hamilton-Rowan (formerly Hamilton), Archibald . In: John Archibald Venn (Ed.): Alumni Cantabrigienses . A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Part 2: From 1752 to 1900 , Volume 3 : Gabb – Justamond . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1947, pp. 216 ( venn.lib.cam.ac.uk Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  2. ^ The Autobiography of Archibald Hamilton Rowan. P. 32.
  3. ↑ TD Spearman: William Rowan Hamilton, 1805-1865 . In: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section A: Mathematical and Physical Sciences . 95A, 1995, ISSN  0035-8975 , pp. 1-12 , JSTOR : 20490182 .
  4. ↑ Autobiography of Archibald Hamilton Rowan
  5. ↑ Harold Nicholson: The Desire to Please: a story of Hamilton Rowan and the United Irishmen. 1943, pp. 80-82.
  6. ^ Jonah Barrington: Memoir of Hamilton Rowan.
  7. ^ David A. Wilson: United Irishmen, United States: Immigrant Radicals in the Early Republic. Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1998, p. 17.
  8. ^ Liam Chambers: Rowan, Archibald Hamilton (1751-1834) . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004, doi : 10.1093 / ref: odnb / 24190 (Restricted Access).
  9. ↑ Harold Nicholson: The Desire to Please. P. 188.
personal data
SURNAME Rowan, Archibald Hamilton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hamilton, Archibald (maiden name); Rowan, Hamilton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish nationalist and revolutionary
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1751
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1834
Place of death Killyleagh , County Down