William Drummond Hamilton (4 May 1859 in

County Louth County Louth ( ; ga, An Lú) is a coastal county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. Louth is bordered by the counties of Meath to the south, Monaghan to the west, Armagh to the north and Down to the ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

– 4 March 1914 in

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Cricket Archive profile
/ref>) was an Irish

cricketer Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

and

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

. A left-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

and

wicket-keeper The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. Th ...

, he played fourteen times for the

Ireland cricket team The Ireland cricket team represents all of Ireland in international cricket. The Irish Cricket Union, operating under the brand Cricket Ireland is the sport's governing body in Ireland, and organises the international team. Ireland participa ...

between 1883 and 1896,CricketEurope Stats Zone profile
/ref> and also played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

for

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and the MCC.

Cricketing career

First-class career

Hamilton was educated at Haileybury and

The Queen's College, Oxford The Queen's College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault. It is distinguished by its pred ...

. He played cricket for Haileybury in 1876 and 1877, and made his first-class debut for Oxford University against

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in May 1882. He played five further matches for the University side that year against the MCC (twice), the

Gentlemen of England Cricket, and hence English amateur cricket, probably began in England during the medieval period but the earliest known reference concerns the game being played c.1550 by children on a plot of land at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, Surrey ...

and

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

,First-class matches played by William Hamilton at Cricket Archive
/ref> before gaining his

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in June against

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. He was so nervous in the match that at one point he started to run the wrong way when called for a

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. The following year, he played three first-class matches for the MCC, playing twice against Oxford University and once against Cambridge University. His top score in first-class cricket was 54 for the MCC against Oxford University.

Ireland career

Two months after his final first-class match, he made his debut for Ireland against

I Zingari I Zingari (from dialectalized Italian , meaning "the Gypsies"; corresponding to standard Italian ') are English and Australian amateur cricket clubs, founded in 1845 and 1888 respectively. It is the oldest and perhaps the most famous of the 'wa ...

. He did not play again for Ireland until July 1887 when he played two matches against

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, then spending nine years in and out of the Irish side, mainly playing against I Zingari, but also playing against

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and the MCC. His last match for Ireland was against I Zingari in August 1896, in which he scored 93, his highest score for Ireland.

Statistics

In all matches for Ireland, Hamilton scored 505 runs at an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

of 28.06. He scored four half-

centuries A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

and took nine

catches Catch may refer to: In sports * Catch (game), children's game * Catch (baseball), a maneuver in baseball * Catch (cricket), a mode of dismissal in cricket * Catch or reception (gridiron football) * Catch, part of a rowing stroke In music * Cat ...

Football

Hamilton also played

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

for Dublin Association F.C. and

. He played in an

1885 Events January–March * January 3– 4 – Sino-French War – Battle of Núi Bop: French troops under General Oscar de Négrier defeat a numerically superior Qing Chinese force, in northern Vietnam. * January 4 – ...

game against

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. Among his team mates was his brother

Willoughby Hamilton Willoughby Hamilton (born as James Willoughby Hamilton; 9 December 1864 – 27 September 1943) was a co-world No. 1 Irish male tennis player, a footballer and international badminton player. Tennis career Hamilton played his first tournament ...

Family

William came from a famous sporting playing family. Three brothers all excelled at sports;

was world ranked number one at tennis at one time, Francis Cole Lowry Hamilton played cricket for Ireland and Blayney Hamilton was a badminton and cricket international. In addition three of William's nephews and nieces (children of Blayney) were badminton internationals (

Arthur Hamilton Arthur Hamilton Stern (born October 22, 1926),Stern, Arthur “Art”
''Mar-Ken ...

and Mavis Hamilton).

References

External links

CricketEurope Stats Zone profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, William 1859 births 1914 deaths 19th-century male tennis players Irish association footballers (before 1923) Irish male tennis players Pre-1950 IFA men's international footballers Cricketers from County Louth Irish cricketers Oxford University cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford Men's association football players not categorized by position Hamilton family (Ireland) Wicket-keepers