Admiral Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force, and is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet, ...

Sir Charles Hamilton, 2nd Baronet KCB (25 May 1767 – 14 September 1849), was a British naval officer and commodore-governor of

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

Life

Hamilton was born the eldest son of John Hamilton, a captain in the Royal Navy who had distinguished himself at the Battle of Quebec in 1775. Charles began his naval career at the age of nine on his father's ship, ''Hector''. He attended the

Royal Naval Academy The Royal Naval Academy was a facility established in 1733 in Portsmouth Dockyard to train officers for the Royal Navy. The founders' intentions were to provide an alternative means to recruit officers and to provide standardised training, educa ...

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

from 1777 to 1779.O'Byrne He commanded a number of vessels in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

and was also a member of the

British parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...

several times between 1790 and 1812 while still serving in the

. He became the 2nd baronet Hamililton of Trebinshun on his father's death in 1784. From 1818 to 1823 he served as resident governor for the colony of Newfoundland. During this period, he oversaw the reconstruction of St. John's following fires in 1818 and 1819. Although he was charged with promoting agriculture, he was soon discouraged by the poor soils of the island. The economy of the island was depressed due to decreased demand for Newfoundland

cod Cod is the common name for the demersal fish genus '' Gadus'', belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gadus'' is commonly not call ...

and Hamilton encouraged diversification of the fisheries to include

whale Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...

seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to impr ...

s and

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

. Hamilton was promoted to

admiral Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force, and is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet, ...

on 22 July 1830, and was awarded KCB in 1833. He died at the family home at Iping,

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

in 1849. He had married Henrietta Martha, the daughter of George Drummond, a banker of Stanmore, Middlesex. Their only son, Sir Charles John James Hamilton, 3rd Baronet, also became an Army officer.

Lady Hamilton Dame Emma Hamilton (born Amy Lyon; 26 April 176515 January 1815), generally known as Lady Hamilton, was an English maid, model, dancer and actress. She began her career in London's demi-monde, becoming the mistress of a series of wealthy me ...

painted a well-known portrait of

Demasduwit Demasduit ( 1796 – January 8, 1820) was a Beothuk woman, one of the last of her people on Newfoundland. Biography Demasduit was born , near the end of the 18th century. It was once believed that the Beothuk population had been decimated by c ...

, also called Mary March, a

Beothuk The Beothuk ( or ; also spelled Beothuck) were a group of indigenous people who lived on the island of Newfoundland. Beginning around AD 1500, the Beothuk culture formed. This appeared to be the most recent cultural manifestation of peoples w ...

woman captured in 1818.

Legacy

Hamilton is the namesake of

Hamilton Inlet __NOTOC__ Hamilton Inlet is a fjord-like inlet of Groswater Bay on the Labrador coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Together with Lake Melville, it forms its province's largest estuary, extending over inland to Happy V ...

and, formerly, of the Hamilton River (now the Churchill River), both in Labrador.

References

Sources

External links

Biography at Government House ''The Governorship of Newfoundland and Labrador''
1767 births 1849 deaths Baronets in the Baronetage of Great Britain Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for constituencies in Cornwall Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Tyrone constituencies (1801–1922) Governors of Newfoundland Colony Royal Navy admirals UK MPs 1801–1802 UK MPs 1802–1806 UK MPs 1807–1812 Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Honiton Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath {{England-UK-MP-stub

Life

Legacy

See also

References

Sources

External links