Portal:Volcanoes/Selected biography/4

Sir William Hamilton, KB, PC (13 December 1730 – 6 April 1803), was a Scottish diplomat, antiquarian, archaeologist and vulcanologist. Hamilton was the fourth son of Lord Archibald Hamilton, governor of Jamaica. He was commissioned into the 3rd Foot Guards in 1747 and was promoted Lieutenant in 1753.

Hamilton was Britain's ambassador to the court of Naples from 1764 to 1800. During this time he studied local volcanic activity and earthquakes, and wrote a book on the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. He collected Greek vases and other antiquities, selling part of his collection to the British Museum in 1772. A small part of his second collection went down with HMS Colossus while being transported to Britain in 1798. The surviving part of the second collection was catalogued for sale at auction at Christie's when at the eleventh hour Thomas Hope stepped in and purchased the remains of Hamilton's second collection of mostly South Italian vases.