Thomas Hamilton (writer)

Thomas Hamilton FRSE (1789, Pisa – 7 December 1842, Florence) was a Scottish philosopher and author.

Born in Pisa, Tuscany, the son of the physician William Hamilton (1758-90) and Elizabeth Stirling, he was the grandson of the anatomist and botanist Professor Thomas Hamilton (died 1782), the nephew of the politician Charles Francis Greville, and the younger brother of the philosopher, Sir William Hamilton.

He was educated at Glasgow University, where he made a close friend of Michael Scott, the author of Tom Cringle's Log. He entered the army in 1810, and served throughout the Peninsular (he was wounded at Albuera in 1811) and American campaigns, but continued to cultivate his literary tastes. On the conclusion of peace he withdrew, with the rank of captain, from active service.

He contributed both prose and verse to Blackwood's Magazine, in which appeared his vigorous and popular military novel, Cyril Thornton (1827). His Annals of the Peninsular Campaign, published originally in 1829, and republished in 1849 with additions by Frederick Hardman, is written with great clearness and impartiality. His only other work, Men and Manners in America, published originally in 1833, is somewhat coloured by British prejudice, and by the author's aristocratic dislike of a democracy. Hamilton died at Pisa on 7 December 1842.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

• Hamilton, Thomas. (1833). Men and Manners in America. Blackwood (reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2009; ISBN 9781108002752)