Career
In 1799 he was appointed chief private secretary to Thomas Bruce,7th Earl of Elgin. He was in Egypt as the British took it over from the French,secured the Rosetta Stone and superintended its transport to England. [5] "He also superintended the shipment of the Parthenon sculptures for Lord Elgin and the recovery of those subsequently lost at sea." [6] After a voyage up the Nile,he wrote a well-known work of Egyptology, Ægyptiaca . [7]
From 1809 to 1822 Hamilton served as Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs,and from 1822 to 1825 he was Minister and Envoy Plenipotentiary at the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies,based at Naples. [6]
In 1830 he succeeded Sir Thomas Lawrence as Secretary of the Society of Dilettanti,a post which he held until his death in 1859. He was also a Trustee of The British Museum from 1838 until 1858,and donated a number of antiquities to the institution. [6] Upon Hamilton's resignation as trustee of the British Museum,Sir Frederic Madden,the Keeper of Manuscripts,recorded in his diary on 11 February 1858:
"I was informed today that Mr W. R. Hamilton,the Trustee,had resigned. God be thanked! This is the man who has carried his Italian friend[ Antonio Panizzi,q.v.] through thick &thin from the time when he first came to the Museum to the present time. A more prejudiced person never existed,nor a greater jobber,when it related to himself or his friends. A man also of violent temper &insolent tongue,whose only &sole aim at the Museum seems to have been to glorify Mr. P. and abuse every thing but the Elgin Marbles. I say again,God be thanked he is gone,and I hope never again to see his ugly face and his crooked legs! He is the only man who ever insulted me in the Committee Room,&yet mean enough to solicit me to lend myself to his dirty jobs,which I always refused to do. The officers of the Department of Antiquities know better than myself what a curse this man has been to the Museum as a Trustee!" [6]
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