James Hamilton, 7th Earl of Abercorn

James Hamilton, 7th Earl of Abercorn FRS PC (22 March 1686 – 11 January 1744) was a Scottish and Irish nobleman, the son of James Hamilton, 6th Earl of Abercorn and Elizabeth Reading. He was styled Lord Paisley from 1701 until his accession in 1734.

Offspring

In April 1711, he married Anne Plumer (1690–1776), by whom he had seven children:

• James Hamilton, 8th Earl of Abercorn (1712–1789)
• Captain Hon. John Hamilton (c. 1714–1755)
• Hon. William Hamilton, died young
• Reverend Hon. George Hamilton (11 August 1718 – 26 November 1787), Canon of Windsor, married Elizabeth Onslow (d. 1800) and had issue
• Hon. Plumer Hamilton, died young
• Hon. William Hamilton (18 February 1721 – 1744)
• Lady Anne Hamilton (12 June 1715 – 14 December 1792), married on 16 August 1746 Sir Henry Mackworth, 6th Baronet

Scientist

A scientist, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society on 10 November 1715, and published Calculations and Tables on the Attractive Power of Lodestones, a book on magnetism, in 1729.

Privy Councils

He was sworn a Privy Counsellor in Great Britain on 20 July 1738 and a Privy Counsellor in Ireland on 26 September 1739. On 17 October of that same year, George II issued a royal charter to the nation's first orphanage for abandoned children, the Foundling Hospital, of which Hamilton was a founding Governor.

References

• Dictionary of National Biography
• thePeerage.com
• genealogy.euweb.cz
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages

Masonic offices
Preceded by The Duke of Richmond and Lennox	Grand Master of the Premier Grand Lodge of England 1725–1726	Succeeded by The Earl of Inchiquin
Peerage of Scotland
Preceded by James Hamilton	Earl of Abercorn 1734–1744	Succeeded by James Hamilton
Peerage of Ireland
Preceded by James Hamilton	Viscount Strabane 1734–1744	Succeeded by James Hamilton
	Baron Mountcastle (descended by acceleration) 1734–1736