Ernest Hamilton

Lord Ernest William Hamilton (5 September 1858 – 14 December 1939) was a British aristocrat, soldier, author, and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1892.

Early life and family

Hamilton was born at Chancellor House, Tunbridge Wells, the seventh son of James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn, and his wife, Lady Louisa Jane Russell. He was educated at Harrow School and Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He became a captain in the 11th Hussars.

His elder brothers James, Marquess of Hamilton; Lord George Hamilton, Lord Claud Hamilton, and Lord Frederick Hamilton were also Conservative MPs. All seven of his sisters married into the peerage, including Louisa, Duchess of Buccleuch; Albertha, Duchess of Marlborough; and Maud Petty-Fitzmaurice, Marchioness of Lansdowne.

Career

In the 1885 general election, Lord Ernest was elected Member of Parliament for Tyrone North. He held the seat until 1892.

Lord Ernest was the author of several novels, two of which, The Outlaws of the Marches and The Mawkin of the Flow, are set on the Scottish Borders in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Another novel, Mary Hamilton, is based on the ballad of the same name.

In the period after the First World War, Hamilton published several historical works, notably The Soul of Ulster, arguing that Ulster Protestants are descended from Scottish Border Reivers transplanted to Ulster by James I and VI, and equating the 1641 massacre of planters by Irish Catholic rebels with later Irish nationalist movements.