August 19, 2024

Finest Hour 200, Fourth Quarter 2022

Page 49

Review by Celia Lee

Celia Lee’s books include The Churchills: A Family Portrait (2010).

Robert Gary Dodds, The Life and Times of Alexander Hamilton: Two Apples That Fell from the Same Tree, Friesen Press, 2022, 378 pages, $51/£36. ISBN 78–1039125599

Robert Gary Dodds traces many of the famous Hamiltons of history, including the Alexander Hamilton of American history, back to the ancient Hamilton families in Scotland and down to the modern day Hamiltons, including the present Alexander, his younger brother Ian, and wife Barbara Hamilton, the portrait painter. Connecting the Hamiltons of Britain with those of Jamaica, from whose stock emerged the f irst United States Secretary of the Treasury (and unlikely subject of a hit Broadway musical) has never been done previously. Dodds has now filled the gap.

The family story in Britain began when a man named de Beaumont came over from Normandy with William the Conqueror in 1066. Around the year 1200, the name evolved into de Hameldone, and by the year 1400 was spelt Hamilton. In the following century, the Hamiltons stood by Mary Queen of Scots, notably at the Battle of Langside in 1568. At that time a Hamilton would have been a contender for the throne of Scotland if Mary’s son James had not been born or had died.

2025 International Churchill Conference

Join us for the 42nd International Churchill Conference. Washington, DC | October 9-11, 2025

2025 International Churchill Conference

In the twentieth century, General Sir Ian Hamilton (1853 1947) led the failed attack at Gallipoli during the First World War in 1915. He was also a great friend of Winston Churchill, whom he had known since the days of the Boer War and who gave his name to Churchill’s second book about that conflict, Ian Hamilton’s March. Churchill’s American ancestors had fought, like Alexander Hamilton, in George Washington’s army. Although Ian Hamilton was only a distant cousin of the American, the family connection gave him something else in common with his good friend Winston.