Hamilton was born in Williamstown, Victoria, the son of Mary Isobel Hamilton, née Cameron and Henry West Hamilton, originally from Ballymoney, Ireland and proprietor of the Pegleg Hotel, Pegleg Gully, near modern Maldon. They had a daughter on 14 August 1856. The father died on 12 July 1858, aged 30, and Mary Hamilton, the daughter, died of diphtheria at the Pegleg Hotel on 4 April 1860. On 1 January 1863 the widow Hamilton married Frederick Clark, who adopted her son. Hamilton was educated at the Corporate High School and at the School of Mines, Bendigo, and gained practical experience on the Victorian goldfields. Early in the 1880s he was appointed manager of the Honnali gold mine in Mysore, India. Three years later he returned to Victoria and took control of the Peel River Proprietary gold mines in New South Wales. He then spent some years as a fruitgrower at Mooroopna, Victoria near Shepparton in the Goulburn Valley. He left for the US in 1893 to manage the Cañada del Oro Company's mine in Arizona, leaving his wife to manage the orchard. In 1896 he was appointed general manager of the Great Boulder Mine and returned to Australia. Katie joined him the following year. On his retirement in 1927 the company appointing him its local director in recognition of his 40 years' service. The Hamiltons had a home at 23 Leake street, Peppermint Grove, but in later years he lived in Cottesloe. He died in a private hospital, Perth, a month short of his 89th birthday, after some years of failing health, and was buried at the Karrakatta cemetery. Hamilton Street, Boulder, Western Australia, was named for him.
Other interests
In 1897 Hamilton was elected president of the Kalgoorlie Chamber of Mines and Commerce, and held that position for three years, then on 28 February 1901 he was elected charter president of its successor, the Chamber of Mines of Western Australia, a position he held until his death.
In 1915, Hamilton, George Ridgway and Frank A. Moss purchased the old Lancefield mine, at Beria, Western Australia, regarded as exhausted, and worked it profitably until 1921, when it closed for good.
Hamilton married Kate Muriel "Kit" "Katie" Clark on 30 July 1888. Clark was a daughter of John Hall Clark of Warwick, England, and niece of Hamilton's stepfather Frederick Clark JP. They had two sons and one daughter:
