Alfred Douglas-Hamilton
Duke of Hamilton
Alfred Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 13th Duke of Hamilton and 10th Duke of Brandon TD, DL (6 March 1862 – 16 March 1940) was a Scottish nobleman and sailor. Hamilton was born at Shanklin, Isle of Wight, in 1862, the son of Captain Charles Douglas-Hamilton (1808–1873). His grandfather, Augustus Hamilton, was a son of Charles Powell Hamilton, himself a grandson of James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Hamilton. As a young man, Hamilton was commissioned into the Royal Navy, and held the rank of lieutenant. He gained the reputation for being able to dive under the keels of the battleships on which he served, without any equipment, reappearing on the opposite side of the ship to the amazement of his crewmates. In 1888, his fourth cousin, William Douglas-Hamilton, 12th Duke of Hamilton, persuaded him to leave the navy. By then, he was the heir presumptive of the Duke, who had no son. There was a serious possibility that Alfred Hamilton would provide a good match for the twelfth duke's daughter, Lady Mary, but such hopes were dashed in 1890, when Hamilton was partially paralysed by a rare tropical disease he had caught while overseas on his last tour of duty. Hamilton recovered and succeeded to the dukedom in 1895. While the new duke inherited all entailed property and assets from his cousin, as well as a £1 million debt secured on them, most of the unentailed Hamilton estates went to Lady Mary, who in
1906 married James Graham, 6th Duke of Montrose. The properties that left the Hamilton family at this time included Brodick Castle on Arran, which had been owned by the Hamiltons for 500 years. One property that did not leave the family was Hamilton Palace, the main family seat. The new Duke was also hereditary keeper of the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
The Black Watch Regiment was created as part of the Childers Reforms in 1881, when the 42nd (Royal Highland) Regiment of Foot (The Black Watch) was amalgamated with the 73rd (Perthshire) Regiment of Foot. It was known as The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) from 1881. The source of the regiment's name is uncertain. In 1725, following the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, General George Wade was authorised by George I to form six "watch" companies to patrol the Highlands of Scotland, three from Clan Campbell, one from Clan Fraser of Lovat, one from Clan Munro and one from Clan Grant. These were to be "employed in disarming the Highlanders, preventing depredations, bringing criminals to justice, and hindering rebels and attainted persons from inhabiting that part of the kingdom." Francis Hindes Groome states in his Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1901) that the watch was "embodied in a field [in Aberfeldy] in 1739". The force was known in Gaelic as Am Freiceadan Dubh, "the dark" or "black watch". This epithet may have come from the uniform plaids of dark tartan with which the companies were provided. Other theories have been put forward; for instance, that the name referred to the "black hearts" of the pro-government militia who had sided with the "enemies of true Highland spirit", or that it came from their original duty in policing the Highlands, namely preventing "blackmail" (Highlanders demanding extortion payments to spare cattle herds).
Duke of Hamilton is a title in the Peerage of Scotland, created in April 1643. It is the senior dukedom in that peerage (except for the Dukedom of Rothesay held by the Sovereign's eldest son), and as such its holder is the premier peer of Scotland, as well as being head of both the House of Hamilton and the House of Douglas. The title, the town of Hamilton in Lanarkshire, and many places around the world are named after members of the Hamilton family. The ducal family's surname, originally "Hamilton", is now "Douglas-Hamilton". Since 1711, the dukedom has been held together with the Dukedom of Brandon in the Peerage of Great Britain, and the dukes since that time have been styled Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, along with several other subsidiary titles.
Awards: Collar, sash and star of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle.
