{{Short description|Mine Manager in Western Australia}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Richard Hamilton''' (6 May 1855<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4808020 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=2498 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=12 May 1855 |access-date=9 January 2019 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> or 29 April 1855 – 16 March 1943) was a mine manager at Boulder, Western Australia.

==History== right|150px |Caricature by David Low Hamilton was born in Williamstown, Victoria, the son of Mary Isobel Hamilton, née Cameron (1833 – 26 Jan 1880) and Henry West Hamilton, originally from Ballymoney, Ireland and proprietor of the Pegleg Hotel,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article87981800 |title=Advertising |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=V |issue=978 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=13 July 1858 |access-date=7 January 2019 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Pegleg Gully,<ref name=dead>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article95184211 |title=Richard Hamilton Dead |newspaper=The Kalgoorlie Miner |volume=49 |issue=12,697 |location=Western Australia |date=17 March 1943 |access-date=5 January 2019 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> near modern Maldon. He had a younger sister born on 14 August 1856.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article88052267 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=III |issue=160 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=21 August 1856 |access-date=9 January 2019 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> His father died on 12 July 1858, when Richard Hamilton was 3. His father was 30.<ref>{{Citation | author1=Leigh McKinnon | title=Gravestone of Henry West Hamilton | publication-date=2018 | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/232467784 | access-date=6 January 2019 }}</ref> His younger sister, Mary Hamilton, the daughter, died of diphtheria at the Pegleg Hotel on 4 April 1860, when she was 4.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article87942874 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=VII |issue=1519 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=6 April 1860 |access-date=9 January 2019 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

On 1 January 1863 the widow Hamilton married Frederick Clark, who adopted Richard Hamilton. :Frederick Clark J.P. (c. 1835 – 4 July 1918)<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92822548 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=The Kalgoorlie Miner |volume=24 |issue=6087 |location=Western Australia |date=19 July 1918 |access-date=5 January 2019 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> of Lester Street, Eaglehawk perhaps 20{{nbsp}}km from Pegleg Gully, was proprietor of a quartz crushing plant, Justice of the Peace and three times Mayor of Eaglehawk.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article219788377 |title=Death of Mr. F. Clark, J.P. |newspaper=The Bendigo Independent |issue=14,784 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=5 July 1918 |access-date=8 January 2019 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> He married twice: to the widow Hamilton in January 1863, and to his cousin,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90430934 |title=Obituary |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=LXVI |issue=19,621 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=5 July 1918 |access-date=9 January 2019 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> the widow Mrs Elizabeth Rayner (c. 1837 – 3 May 1921),<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article93244630 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=The Kalgoorlie Miner |volume=27 |issue=6838 |location=Western Australia |date=7 May 1921 |access-date=5 January 2019 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> on 13 June 1881.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article88634736 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=XXVIII |issue=8,100 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=20 June 1881 |access-date=9 January 2019 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

Hamilton was educated at the Corporate High School and at the School of Mines, Bendigo, and gained practical experience on the Victorian goldfields. Early in the 1880s he was appointed manager of the Honnali gold mine in Mysore, India. Three years later he returned to Victoria and took control of the Peel River Proprietary gold mines in New South Wales.<ref name=dead/> He then spent some years as a fruitgrower at Mooroopna, Victoria<ref name=Mrs/> near Shepparton in the Goulburn Valley. He left for the US in 1893 to manage the Cañada del Oro (Canyon of Gold) Company's mine in Arizona, leaving his wife to manage the orchard. In 1896 he was appointed general manager of the Great Boulder Mine and returned to Australia. Katie joined him the following year.<ref name=Mrs/>

On his retirement in 1927 the company appointing him its local director in recognition of his 40 years' service.<ref name=dead/>

The Hamiltons had a home at 23 Leake street, Peppermint Grove, but in later years he lived in Cottesloe. He died in a private hospital, Perth, a month short of his 89th birthday, after some years of failing health,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article78465953 |title=Mr. Richard Hamilton Dies |newspaper=The Daily News (Perth) |volume=LXI |issue=21,200 |location=Western Australia |date=16 March 1943 |access-date=5 January 2019 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and was interred at the Karrakatta cemetery.<ref name=dead/>

Hamilton Street, Boulder, Western Australia, was named for him.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59182910 |title=How Boulder's Streets Received Their Names |newspaper=The Sunday Times (Perth) |issue=2418 |location=Western Australia |date=25 June 1944 |access-date=5 January 2019 |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

==Other interests== *In 1897 Hamilton was elected president of the Kalgoorlie Chamber of Mines and Commerce, and held that position for three years, then on 28 February 1901 he was elected charter president of its successor, the Chamber of Mines of Western Australia, a position he held until his death.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59334609 |title=Believe It - It's True |newspaper=The Sunday Times (Perth) |issue=2467 |location=Western Australia |date=3 June 1945 |access-date=5 January 2019 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *Hamilton was a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining Engineers, its president in 1909 and vice-president 1910 *In 1915, Hamilton, George Ridgway and Frank A. Moss purchased the old Lancefield mine, at Beria, Western Australia, regarded as exhausted, and worked it profitably until 1921, when it closed for good. *He was a board member, Wiluna Gold Mines, Ltd.<ref name=record>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47315856 |title=Mr. Hamilton's Record |newspaper=The West Australian |volume=57 |issue=17,074 |location=Western Australia |date=26 March 1941 |access-date=5 January 2019 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> *He was a member of the exclusive<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244105463 |title=Unions and Unionists |newspaper=The Herald (Melbourne) |issue=16,278 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=20 July 1929 |access-date=9 January 2019 |page=16 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Weld Club, Perth, and Hannans Club, Kalgoorlie.

==Family== Hamilton married Kate Muriel "Kit" "Katie" Clark ( – 23 July 1926) on 30 July 1888.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article88553197 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=XXXV |issue=10,287 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=18 August 1888 |access-date=6 January 2019 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Clark was a daughter of John Hall Clark (c. 1831 – 26 May 1875) of Warwick, England,<ref name=Mrs>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article34400124 |title=Death of Mrs R. Hamilton |newspaper=Western Argus |volume=32 |issue=1691 |location=Western Australia |date=27 July 1926 |access-date=9 January 2019 |page=28 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and niece of Hamilton's stepfather Frederick Clark JP (c. 1835 – 4 July 1918). They had two sons and one daughter: *Frederick Clark Hamilton (1890 – 22 September 1948), of "Warwick Park" farm, Moora, Western Australia married Kathleen Irene Hannah Sullivan (1895–1923), only daughter of Joseph Sullivan, of Perth, on 28 September 1914. He married again, to Caroline Mary Sedgwick (1892– ) on 11 May 1925; she was mother of Frederick Hamilton. :*Richard Hamilton (17 September 1915 – 24 June 1944) drowned as result of torpedoing of ''Tamahoko Maru'' by USS ''Tang'' near Nagasaki while a POW of Japan. :*Kathleen Hamilton (8 August 1918 – died before 1944) :*Mary Hamilton (24 March 1922 – ) married Philip Alan Sandland after September 1943<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article46770253 |title=Engagements |newspaper=The West Australian |volume=59 |issue=17,851 |location=Western Australia |date=25 September 1943 |access-date=7 January 2019 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> :*Elizabeth "Betty" Hamilton (1923–2014) married David LeFroy :*Frederick Hamilton *(Mary) Elizabeth Hamilton *Rev. Richard West Hamilton (4 July 1902 – ) of Oxford, England :*Richard Allan Hamilton (19 June 1933 – )

;Children of Fred Clark :Mary E. C. Clark (c. 1866 – 8 September 1902), married Robert McNaughton<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article89485734 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=L |issue=14,700 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=9 September 1902 |access-date=8 January 2019 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> :Elizabeth Isabella "Lizzie" Clark (died 30 March 1942) married Thomas Maughan of Kalgoorlie on 25 October 1899.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article88764406 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=The Kalgoorlie Miner |volume=7 |issue=18467 |location=Western Australia |date=9 September 1902 |access-date=6 January 2019 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

;Other family members :Hubert Ratcliff Clark (died 27 April 1948) was a brother of Hamilton's wife Katie; he worked at the Boulder Mine.

== References == {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Richard}} Category:1855 births Category:1943 deaths Category:Australian mine managers Category:Australian people of Irish descent Category:People from Bendigo Category:Gold mining in Western Australia Category:People from the Colony of Victoria Category:Expatriates in British India Category:Australian expatriates in the United States Category:19th-century Australian businesspeople Category:20th-century Australian businesspeople Category:Burials at Karrakatta Cemetery