 Well, good afternoon, everyone. I hope everyone can hear me. Thank you very much for inviting me to give this talk about my ancestors, the reverend Anthony Hamilton and his son, William Richard Hamilton, who are both fellows and vice presidents of the Society of Antiquaries. I would like to start by waiting for an introduction to outline the reasons why my link to these two gentlemen is known. My maternal grandfather, Terek Victor Henry, feeds you, spent most of his life researching the family tree and was one of the founders of the Association of Genealogists and Recording Agents. He was also a member of the Society of Genealogists, and in 1952 he found a research journal The Amity Historian, now the local historian, and was his first editor. Terek wrote the Dictionary of Genealogy and had traced his family tree back to 1309. He was in the process of writing up the results of his family research, which he had meticulously recorded, but sadly he did not live to complete his work when he died in 1990. Tantalisingly, he had just reached 1791, which was the year before my four times great-grandfather married Charlotte Hamilton, the daughter of the reverend Anthony Hamilton and sister to William Richard Hamilton. The reverend Anthony Hamilton was born on 5 May 1739 and was the son of Alexander Hamilton, who had married the heiress Charlotte Stiles, and so acquired the Essex Manor of Holyfield in the northeast of the parish of Waltham Abbey. Anthony Hamilton was the younger son of the marriage and was educated at Harris School and entered Corpus Christy's College Cambridge in 1755. He graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1760, Master of Arts in 1763 and Doctor of Divinity in 1775. Ordained Deacon in 1762 and Priest in 1763, he became Vicar of Fulham and then in 1766 of Allset in Essex. In 1770 he became Archdeacon of London, giving up the post in 1775 to become the Archdeacon of Colchester. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1773 and of the Royal Society in 1777. In 1776 Hamilton became Rector of Much Haddon in Hertfordshire near Bishop's Dorghford. He also became Vicar of St Martin's in the Fields. In the 1790s he lived at 16 in Savile Row. This painting of Anthony Hamilton hangs at St Martin's in the Fields and was a photo taken by my father. He describes the journey of seeing the painting thus. I asked the verger about it and he took me on a security's route to what looked like a typing pool where it was displayed. I assume now two typing pools are no longer there so we'll have to go back and have a look and see if it's in a nicer area. This painting was by T. Kettle which is likely to be Tilly Kettle who was born from 1735 to 1786 and was the first prominent English portrait painter to operate in India. The Society of Antiquities has a copy of the engraving of this painting which is on the other side and that's by Al Duncan and that's in its archives. In 1794 Anthony Hamilton communicated to the Society an account of the gardens near London with remarks on some particulars wherein they excel or deficient upon the view of them in December 1961 which was written by J Gibson in 1691. These gardens included Hampton Court, Kensington Gardens, Sir Henry Capples Garden in Kew and most interesting for me Mr Rainsons Garden in Enfield which would have been 40 Hall in Enfield where, as Jill was saying, I was operations manager. But before I came to Kelscott Manor his description of the Enfield Garden states that it is observable for nothing but its greenhouse which it has had for many years. His orange, lemons and myrtletrees were as full and furnished as any in cases. The rest of the garden is very ordinary. In 1804 Anthony communicated to the Society the account of the discovery and internment of the heart of Arthur Lord Capples in a letter to the Reverend John Brandt Secretary. I should explain a bit about Arthur Capples. In April 1640 Arthur Capples was elected a Member of Parliament in Hertfordshire in the Short Parliament and was re-enacted MP for the Long Parliament in November 1640. On the outbreak of the Civil War he was appointed Lieutenant General of Shropshire, Cheshire and North Wales on the Royalist side. He attended the Queen in her flight to France in 1646 and subsequently aided the King's escape to the Isle of Wight and on the 27th of August 1648 he surrendered to Fairfax at Colchester and despite assurances of quarter for life and due to an attempt to escape from the Tower of London he was condemned to death by Parliament on the 8th of March 1649. The letter from Anthony Hampton gives an account of what happened to Arthur Capples' heart after his execution. Apparently the anecdotal evidence was that his wish was that his heart might be taken to his body and preserved for the purpose of being interred with the body of Charles I when the restoration of the family to the crown should take place. My ancestor, through communication with other fellows who were descendants of the chaplain to the Earl of Essex discovered that in 1703 the Earl's family moved from Haddon Hall and in assisting with their removal the Dean discovered a silver cup and cover with a written account that it contained the heart of Lord Capples whose body at that time had been buried in the council of the church in Dittle Haddon. The discovery of the cup was instantly communicated by the Dean to the family and he received directions that the cup should be carefully disposited in the vaults at Liddle Haddon. However, the Dean represented to the family that the sexton and perhaps others would know that a large silver cup was deposited in the vault upon some future occasion of opening it the cup would probably be stolen. He recommended that an iron box should be provided which would give more security and that the silver cup be sold and the money was given to the poor of the parish. This was accordingly done. Anthony Hamilton married Anne Terrick, daughter of Richard Terrick, Bishop of London on 12 February 1767. They had five children, one daughter and four sons. He died in 1812 and was buried at Loudon with memorials set up in much Haddon and Liddle Haddon churches. William Richard Hamilton his son and my four times great uncle was born on the 9th of January 1777. After studying at Harrow where he accidentally was blamed for life he was entered into both Oxford and Cambridge universities and in 1799 began his public life by becoming secretary to Lord Elgin when the latter was appointed ambassador to Constantinople. William's sponsor, Colonel Anfrusta noted he has much good sense and a great activity of mind. He is industrious and in the highest degree anxious to render himself useful. His manners are pleasing and his principles perfectly good so you may use him as one as your companion, your confident and your fag. In June 1801 he was sent by Lord Elgin to Egypt to help superintend the evacuation of the French after the battle of Alexandria. On William's advice Commander General Hutchinson had insisted in the terms of the French capitulation that the Rosetta stone be handed over to the British. The stone had been uncovered by Bonaparte engineers in 1799 when repairing some fortifications. I have two different accounts of what happened next. Hamilton discovered that the French contrary to the treaty had taken the stone. One account says that he was discovered hidden under clothes in the French general's house. Another account says that he had been stealthily been shipped. Apparently William procured an escort of soldiers and in spite of danger of fever rode out to the French transport and insisted on carrying off the precious monument. While I would love the thought of William setting out on a boat at the risk of his life from fever to recover the stone there is a written account of the affair by another Englishman in the party Edward D Clarke a minor ornogist making his third trip to Egypt who attended the difficult party with General Minu who apparently viewed the stone as his personal property. It says, we remained near the outside of the tent and soon heard the French general's voice, elevated as usual and in strong terms of indignation remonstrating against the injustices of the demands made upon him. The Rosetta stone together with other antiquaries left for England where following its arrival in February in 1802 it was deposited at the Society of Antiquaries. On the 29th of April the Society's Council resolved that a soulful cast of the inscription on the stone be taken and invitations were to be extended to inspect and copy the stone. In July the antiquaries resolved to have plaster cast prepared of the stone and dispatched together with a letter from the Secretary to the University of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Dublin. The receipts of letters acknowledging the cast and also engravings of the inscriptions which the Society's had sent out were minited in December and in June 1803 the stone itself was transferred to the British Museum. In 1802 William Hamilton was still in the service of Lord Elgin in collecting the Grecian marbles and he insuperintended their removal something for which I have to continually apologise to my wife about. He was unborddly mentor the ship carrying some of the principal groups when it sank in a matter of minutes in a storm off the port of Circeo. Lives were saved only by men jumping from the boat onto the rocks. Hamilton spent several months supervising the diving for the marbles having by his own account procured some very excellent divers who were able to with immense labour and perturbments to extract a few of the cases from the hold of the ship while she lay in 12 atoms of water. The rest may have been recovered later after storms of two winters broken the ship up. In October 1809 he was also appointed Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and after the Battle of Waterloo William was credited with compelling the Bourbon Government to restore to Italy the words of art which he had been bereft of by the French armies. In recognition of this service he was presented with one of four ideal heads by Canova. The other three were presented to Wellington, Lord Karlsruich and Sir Charles Long FSA. The stand when he took on the Elgin's Marbles meant that he was on two occasions refused membership of the Society of Dilatante which had initially opposed their purchase. However, he was elected in 1811 and went on to succeed the artist Sir Thomas Lawrence and became its longest serving secretary from 1830 to 1859. A fellow of the Royal Society and a trustee of the British Museum from 1838 to 1858 he was a member of the Royal Society of the British Museum from 1878 to 1858. He was also a founder member of the Royal Geographical Society of which he later became president. He became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on the 14th of June 1804 and vice president from 1827 to 1847 as well as being director from 1809, 10 and 1826, 27. He died on the 11th of July 1859 at Bolton Row London in his 82nd year having married in 1804 and leaving six sons and a daughter. Charlotte Fitzhugh Lee Hamilton was my four times great-grandmother. Elder sister to William Hamilton and born on the 2 December 1767. She married William Fitzhugh at St George's Chapel Hanover in 1792 and she was 24 and he was a few days short of being 35. Although not so much is known about Charlotte I'm finishing my lecture with her because she is my direct ancestor and her interesting link with the painter Sir Thomas Lawrence and the actress Sarah Siddons. Sir Thomas Lawrence was a leading English portrait painter and fourth president of the Royal Academy. I've already mentioned that he was secretary of the Society of Dead Attempty and appears to have been a friend of the Hamilton family. Sarah Siddons was a Welsh-born actress best known for tragic pummits her most famous being Lady Macbeth and it is also recorded that she fainted at the sight of the Elgin Marbles when she saw them in London. Charlotte's husband William became MP for Tiberton in 1803 and at this time she was enjoying a friendship with the famous actress Sarah Siddons. John Fife in his book Tragedy Queens of the Georgian Era describes Charlotte as the wife of the member of Tiberton who for half a lifetime was attached friend and correspondent of Sarah Siddons and served and spent a year without a visit to her at a country seat bannisters near Southampton. In 1804 William and Charlotte commissioned a full length portrait of Sarah Siddons by Thomas Lawrence. It was Sir Joseph Farrington who was a member of the Royal Academy reports in his diaries being painted in March and April 1804 partly by partly by landlite. Fanny Kemble, Sarah Siddons niece thought the picture resembled some dark cow in a coal necklace. Whilst the sitter herself said that it was more really like me than anything that has been done before. Joseph Farrington reporting on 30 April 1804 said at 12 the doors were opened Mrs Siddons and Mrs Fitzhugh came and the latter was not satisfied with the likeness of the portrait of Mrs Siddons. When Sarah Siddons died in 1831 she left a mourning ring to her old friend and Charlotte Fitzhugh presented the Lawrence portrait to the National Gallery in 1843 and the picture is still currently held by the Tate. My family still have a number of items in their possession from the Hamilton family. Charlotte also commissioned Thomas Lawrence to paint a portrait of her father the Reverend Anthony Hamilton which we believe to be this one currently in possession of my uncle. He also had two portraits of Charlotte Hamilton the portrait of her as a young woman was painted by her husband who seems to have extended her necks somewhat and the older one in which my aunt has described as looking a bit of an old bat mind you she says most people would wearing something like that. My father has two books signed by Sarah Siddons a Bible and a book entitled The History of the First Parents selected from Milton's Paradise Lost for the use of young persons by Sarah Siddons. The inscription reads my dear Emily Fitzhugh from her affectionate godmother and sincere friend Sarah Siddons. In conclusion I would like to thank John Lewis, Heather Rowland and the library team and Jeremy Warren for supplying with the information from this lecture. My uncle and father for providing documents digital images and to my grandfather who passed down his love of history gene to me. I've had enormous enjoyment in discovering more about my ancestors and feel that there is a lot more to discover about the Hamilton family. However just as I was getting my head around having two ancestors that were fellows of the society my father emailed me with this picture of Philip Metcalf another ancestor fellow but that's for another time. Thank you.