The Times/1926/Obituary/Thomas Hamilton

THE REV. DR. HAMILTON The Rev. the Right Hon. Thomas Hamilton, D.D., LL.D., died yesterday in Belfast at the age of 83.

Dr. Hamilton was born in Belfast, the son of the Rev. David Hamilton, an ex-Moderator of the General Assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church. He was sent to school at the Royal Academical Institution, Belfast, and passed on to Queen's College, where he took first-class honours and two gold medals in science in the old queen's University. For some years he was minister of York-street Presbyterian Church, but in 1889 was appointed President of Queen's College, Belfast. Under his rule the college greatly developed, but it was not till the Irish Universities Act was passed in 1908 that his ideal of an autonomous University for Belfast was realized. Naturally he was appointed the first President and Vice-Chancellor of the new University, and he held both offices till 1923. Aberdeen gave him the hon. D.D., and the Royal University of Ireland, if which he was for many years a Senator, the hon. LL.D. In 1921 he was sworn of the Irish Privy Council. Dr. Hamilton was the author of a memoir of his father, of many articles in the Dictionary of National Biography, of a history of the Irish Presbyterian Church, and of a book of bibliographical studies of Irish worthies. A prize essay of his on Sunday observance had a very wide circulation. He married in 1876 Miss Frances Allen, and had one son and two daughters. Mrs. Hamilton died on May 4 last.