McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Person
Hamilton, W. E. (William Edwin), 1834-1902
1834-1902
William Edwin Hamilton was born on May 10, 1834, in Dublin, Ireland, the son of the Irish mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865).
He was a journalist, editor, and author. In 1857, he graduated from Trinity College Dublin and became a civil engineer, working for a while as a railway surveyor. In 1866, he edited and published his father’s manuscript of the "Elements of Quaternions". In 1872, he emigrated to Canada where he became a journalist and an editor, working in Bracebridge, Ontario at E. F. Stephenson's Free Grant Gazette, and as a Government Immigration Agent. In 1880, Hamilton finally settled in Chatham, where he became editor of the Chatham Planet. After having lost his editorship, he started his own Market Guide in 1885.
He died on March 17, 1902, in Kent, Ontario.