William John Hamilton, FRS(5 July 1805 – 27 June 1867) was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 geologist

Geologist

A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

.

He was the son of William Richard Hamilton

William Richard Hamilton

William Richard Hamilton, FRS, was a British antiquarian, traveller and diplomat. He was son of Rev. Anthony Hamilton, Archdeacon of Colchester and Anne, daughter of Richard Terrick, Bishop of London....

 (1777–1859), and was educated at Charterhouse School

Charterhouse School

Charterhouse School, originally The Hospital of King James and Thomas Sutton in Charterhouse, or more simply Charterhouse or House, is an English collegiate independent boarding school situated at Godalming in Surrey.Founded by Thomas Sutton in London in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian...

 and the University of Göttingen. He became a fellow of the Geological Society of London

Geological Society of London

The Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of "investigating the mineral structure of the Earth"...

 in 1831. In 1835 he made a geological tour of the Levant with Hugh Edwin Strickland

Hugh Edwin Strickland

Hugh Edwin Strickland , was an English geologist, ornithologist,naturalist, and systematist.Strickland was born at Reighton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. He was the second son of Henry Eustatius Strickland of Apperley, Gloucestershire, by his wife Mary, daughter of Edmund Cartwright, D.D. [q...

, continuing on his own through Armenia

Armenia

Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

 and across Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

. This journey was described in Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus, and Armenia (1842).

Hamilton was president of the Geological Society between 1854 and 1866. He was Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for Newport, Isle of Wight

Newport (Isle of Wight) (UK Parliament constituency)

Newport was a parliamentary borough located in Newport , which was abolished in for the 1885 general election. It was occasionally referred to by the alternative name of Medina....

 from 1841 to 1847. He made excursions in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 and wrote on the rocks

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...

 and mineral

Mineral

A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...

s of Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

, the agate

Agate

Agate is a microcrystalline variety of silica, chiefly chalcedony, characterised by its fineness of grain and brightness of color. Although agates may be found in various kinds of rock, they are classically associated with volcanic rocks and can be common in certain metamorphic rocks.-Etymology...

 quarries of Oberstein, and on the geology of the Mayence basin and the Hesse-Kassel

Hesse-Kassel

The Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel or Hesse-Cassel was a state in the Holy Roman Empire under Imperial immediacy that came into existence when the Landgraviate of Hesse was divided in 1567 upon the death of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse. His eldest son William IV inherited the northern half and the...

(or Hesse-Cassel) district.