William Edwin Hamilton (10 May 1834 – 17 March 1902) was the elder son of the Irish mathematician
Sir William Rowan Hamilton and Lady Helen Maria Hamilton Bayly.
Early life in Ireland
William Edwin Hamilton was born at
Dunsink Observatory
The Dunsink Observatory is an astronomical observatory established in 1785 in the townland of Dunsink in the outskirts of the city of Dublin, Ireland.Alexander Thom''Irish Almanac and Official Directory''7th ed., 1850 p. 258. Retrieved: 2011 ...
, in the civil parish of
Castleknock
Castleknock () is an affluent suburb located west of the centre of Dublin city, Ireland. It is centered on the village of the same name in Fingal.
In addition to the suburb, the name "Castleknock" also refers to older units of land division: a ...
,
Dublin. He graduated in 1857 from
Trinity College Dublin and became a civil engineer, working for some years as a surveyor for railway purposes.
In 1862 Hamilton left for
Nicaragua with his aunt Sydney Hamilton on a venture scheme anticipating a canal project across the
Isthmus of Darien
An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmu ...
. Realizing the futility of this venture, and not used to the diet and the climate, in 1864 he returned to the Observatory and lived with his parents until his father's death in 1865.
In 1843 Hamilton's father had discovered the
quaternions, a four-dimensional number system that extends the
complex numbers
In mathematics, a complex number is an element of a number system that extends the real numbers with a specific element denoted , called the imaginary unit and satisfying the equation i^= -1; every complex number can be expressed in the form a ...
, and he had published
Lectures on Quaternions' in 1853. From 1858 until his death in 1865 he worked on a second book, ''Elements of Quaternions'', which was nearly finished when he died.
Hamilton's brother Archibald Henry Hamilton, a clergyman and executor of his father’s estate, being too much engaged in his clerical duties to undertake the task, asked Hamilton to bring the ''Elements of Quaternions'' to publication. Hamilton published the manuscript as his father had left it, removing "a few typographical errors" and adding a short preface in which he wrote: "Shortly before my father’s death I had several conversations with him on the subject of the ''Elements''. In these he spoke of anticipated applications of quaternions to electricity, and to all questions in which the idea of polarity is involved — applications which he never in his own lifetime expected to be able to fully develop, bows to be reserved for the hands of another Ulysses."
Later life in Canada
In 1872, Hamilton emigrated to Canada where he became a journalist and an editor, working in
Bracebridge, Ontario
Bracebridge is a town and the seat of the Muskoka District Municipality in Ontario, Canada.
The town was built around a waterfall on the Muskoka River in the centre of town, and is known for its other nearby waterfalls (Wilson's Falls, High Falls ...
at E.F. Stephenson's ''Free Grant Gazette'', and as a Government Immigration Agent.
In his introduction to ''Guidebook and Atlas'' of
Muskoka, Hamilton outlines the history of the region. The name he traces to Muska Ukee, or
Musquakie, a leader of the
Chippewa of Lakes
Huron and
Simcoe Simcoe may refer to:
Geography Canada
* Simcoe, Ontario, a town in southwestern Ontario, near Lake Erie, Canada
* Simcoe County, a county in central Ontario, Canada
* Lake Simcoe, a lake in central Ontario, Canada
* Simcoe North, a federal and pr ...
. He passes over the surveying by
Henry Bayfield
Admiral Henry Wolsey Bayfield (21 January 1795 – 10 February 1885) was a British naval officer and surveyor.
Early life and career
Bayfield was born in Kingston-upon-Hull, to John Wolsey Bayfield and Eliza Petit. His family was an ancien ...
to the
Free Grants Act of 1868, notes the efforts to organize as a county in Ontario, and the $2000 bonus and tax deferral given to Beardmore Brothers tannery to locate in Bracebridge. He promotes tourism to Muskoka and celebrates the local success. However rocky soil hindered agriculture, and the period was recalled in ''Hardscrabble: the High Cost of Free Land''. The ''Guidebook and Atlas'' was "the last concerted effort to draw settlers to Muskoka."
In ''Hardscrabble'', Williams writes: "Eccentric was W.E. Hamilton, the scholar and newspaperman, with his pet
snowy owl and birch bark accessories, holed up with his books above the ''Free Grant Gazette''."
In 1880 Hamilton finally settled in Chatham, where he was for some time editor of the ''Chatham Planet''. After having lost his editorship, in 1885 he started his own ''Market Guide'', "a four-page, pink paper tabloid, ... in which he sold sufficient advertising to eke out a starved existence."
For several years in the late 1880s Hamilton was an alcoholic, but according to
Macfarlane he took
Leslie Keeley
Leslie Enraught Keeley (June 10, 1836 – February 21, 1900) was an American physician, originator of the Keeley Cure.
Biography
He was born in Potsdam, New York, on June 10, 1836.
Keeley graduated at the Rush Medical College, Chicago, in 1863, ...
's
Gold Cure
The Keeley Institute, known for its Keeley Cure or Gold Cure, was a commercial medical operation that offered treatment to alcoholics from 1879 to 1965. Though at one time there were more than 200 branches in the United States and Europe, the ori ...
. He was cured, and became in his last years a "kindly good-natured old Irishman", known for his 'amazing erudition.'
[Wayman (1987) pp. 305, 308]
Books
* 1865: ''Scenes in the life of a planter's daughter, etc.''. George Herbert, Dublin
* 1884: ''Muskoka sketch''. Times Printing Co., Dresden, Ontario
* 1895: ''Peeps at my Life'', 2nd edition. Banner Printing Company, Chatham, Ontario
References
Sources
* Hamilton, W.E. (1865),
Scenes from the Life of a Planter's Daughter' Dublin: George Herbert
* Hamilton, W.R. (au), Hamilton, W.E. (ed) (1866),
Elements of Quaternions' London: Longmans, Green, & Co
* Hamilton, W.E. (1878), Muskoka and Parry Sound. In: Kirkwood, A., Murphy, J.J.,
The Underdeveloped Lands in Northern & Western Ontario' Toronto: Hunter, Rose & Co., pp. 56–86
* Hamilton, W.E. (1879), Muskoka and Parry Sound Districts. In: Rogers, J., Penson, S.,
Guide book & Atlas of Muskoka and Parry Sound Districts' Toronto: H.R. Page & Co, pp. 1–35
* Hamilton, W.E. (1884),
Muskoka Sketch' Dresden, Ontario: Times Printing Co
* Graves, R.P. (1889),
Life of Sir William Rowan Hamilton' Dublin: Hodges, Figgis and Co
* Hamilton, W.E. (1895),
Peeps at my life' Chatham: Banner Printing Company
* Macfarlane, A. (1902)
W.E. Hamilton''Science'' 15 (389): 950
* Hankins, T.L. (1980),
Sir William Rowan Hamilton' Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press
* Wayman, P.A. (1987),
Dunsink Observatory, 1785-1985 : a Bicentennial History' Dublin: DIAS and the Royal Dublin Society
* Wayman, P.A. (1999)
Peeps at William Edwin Hamilton''Irish Astronomical Journal'', 26 (1): 69-72
* Williams, D.E. (2013),
Hardscrabble: The High Cost of Free Land' Toronto: Dundurn Press
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, William Edwin
William Rowan Hamilton
Irish journalists
1834 births
1902 deaths
People from Castleknock
Historical treatment of quaternions
Writers from Ontario
Irish expatriates in Nicaragua
Irish emigrants to Canada (before 1923)