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Scenes from the Life of Miss Sydney Margaret Hamilton

2013 February 4

Talbot's Castle, Trim, Co. Meath, where W. R. Hamilton began his boyhood education with his aunt and uncle. Photo by Bkwillwm, 2010 April 17.

• William Rowan Hamilton to his father. 14th August, 1818:
  I am very busy going over Homer and Virgil, and some other books, and have advanced a good deal in Science. I have made a kind of epitome of Algebra in my large Album. I am reading a little Italian in order to study the notes of an Italian Virgil that uncle has, and read Clairaut's Algebra in French. Sydney is doing arithmetic with me, and is going on very well in it. She does a little French and geography with aunt every day, and reads part of the chapters, morning and evening, to uncle, I reading the remainder in Hebrew and Greek ...

• From Life of Sir William Rowan Hamilton, Knt., LL.D., D.C.L., M.R.I.A., Andrews Professor of Astronomy in the University of Dublin and Royal Astronomer of Ireland, etc. etc. by Robert Perceval Graves [Dublin: Hodges & Figgis, 1882] Vol. I, p. 61:
  Some time before this he [William, aged 14] had formed of himself and his three ... sisters [Grace, Eliza, and Sydney] an "Honourable Society of Four," for which he had drawn up laws in the most formal style ... Over them their father was constituted permanent King, with no legislative authority, but with power to veto enactments of the Four. On the 9th of July (the document still exists) was presented to His Majesty Archibald Hamilton the humble petition of William Hamilton, praying, on various grounds, that the time appointed for his return to Trim might be deferred. One of these grounds was that he might have the opportunity of repeating a visit to the Observatory which he had made the day before. This was his first sight of the house which was to be his future home.
  
  Dunsink Observatory, Dublin. Photograph by David Malone, 2002.

• William Rowan Hamilton, age 21 years, to his sister Sydney:
  TRIM, June 16, 1827. I have been long intending to write to you, but have been prevented from doing so by a variety of occupations. But I lose no time in telling you, what I know will give you pleasure, that I have been this morning unanimously elected to succeed the Bishop of Cloyne as Professor of Astronomy at the University. I send you a rose-leaf from the Observatory garden.

• William Rowan Hamilton to his sister Sydney:
  EDGEWORTHTOWN, March 30, 1828. ... You have, I believe, never met Miss Edgeworth, but you must have heard from Eliza of the impression made upon her by the amiable and talented authoress. She (Miss E.) is certainly a most agreeable woman, and her sisters are so too, though all in different ways. The one I like best is Fanny, who has a very strong taste for Science, and is a great assistant to her brother William in observing and calculating, as I hope that you will be to me at some future time, unless you should be otherwise disposed of ... I have great hopes that when I return to the Observatory, I shall prevail on Grace and Eliza, especially the latter, to pursue the study of mathematics and astronomy, both for their own sake and for mine ...

• William Rowan Hamilton to his sister Sydney:
  OBSERVATORY, September 16, 1828. I received your letters some time ago, containing the results of your logarithmic calculations, some of which I have examined and found to be very correct. But it would not be fair to employ you at present much in this way. So far as concerns myself, it is not so much a subordinate assistant that I want as a sympathising fellow-labourer ; and as concerns you, it will be better that you should have your reasoning faculties engaged and developed, by reflections on the theory of mathematics, than that you should merely become expert in the practical business of calculation. I intend therefore to write to you from time to time on scientific subjects, beginning with remarks on the first principles of algebra, and especially of arithmetic, which may be considered as the vestibule to the great edifice of mathematical philosophy ... [The letter continues with a discussion of the philosophical underpinnings of number theory.]

  

• From a memoir by by Eliza Mary Hamilton:
  "Here he comes," exclaimed Sydney, after we had been a long time home, and were sitting in the house waiting his arrival, or rather return, for he had arrived during our absence, and gone out with my brother. I looked, and saw walking up the avenue with William a tall man, with grey hair, a brown coat, and nankeen trousers, on whom Smoke, our black greyhound, was jumping up in a most friendly manner, not by any means his wont with every stranger. In a few minutes Wordsworth was in the room with us ...

• William Rowan Hamilton to his sister Sydney:
  RYDAL MOUNT, July 30, 1830. ... To-day a letter has come which seems to be in your handwriting, and which therefore encourages me to hope that you are quite well again, although I do not yet know its contents, because it is addressed to Eliza, and she has been all the morning with Wordsworth, shut up in a summer-house which nobody dares to approach. It is rumoured that they are engaged in critical discussion of her poems ...

• From Sir William Rowan Hamilton by Thomas L. Hankins [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1980], p. 47:
  Hamilton was never a success as a practicing astronomer. Observational astronomy in the early 19th century meant measuring the positions of the heavenly bodies with the greatest possible accuracy. The transit instrument measured the precise moment when a star passed the meridian of the observatory, and the the meridian circle also measured the elevation of the star. The work was tedious in the extreme --- night after night of measurements, to be reduced during the day to star positions ... Sydney and Grace showed considerable stamina, in particular in 1831, when they were doing much of the observing.

  

• William Rowan Hamilton to Viscount Adare:
  RYDAL MOUNT, August 10, 1830. ... With respect to the Equatorial ... the Provost assured me it would be procured, which I told to Sharpe before I left Dublin. My sister Sydney writes me word that Thompson has been rather more diligent -- so much so, that he had nearly illuminated the wires in earnest, by using a bottle of turpentine.

• William Rowan Hamilton to William Wordsworth:
  OBSERVATORY, October 29, 1831. I come before you now in a new character, that of a translator : The Dignity of Women is a poem by Schiller, which is a favourite of mine ... A few minutes ago, while I was at tea, my sister Sydney (younger than Eliza) rushed into the room and exclaimed to me, "Here's Wordsworth himself!" --- on which I started up, and in my surprise and delight and momentary belief of your literal and bodily arrival, could only utter about half of the first syllable of your name, and stood for an instant rapt, till recalled by my sister's laughter ... The ground of her exclamation was the return of a copy of the last edition of your poems, which had been lent ...

• Hankins, pp. 114-119:
  Helen Bayly remains a shadowy figure in Hamilton's life, in spite of all the references to her in the manuscripts. Before their marriage, Hamilton recognised that she was likely to be chronically ill, and that she was almost morbidly shy and timid ... In the few weeks before the wedding [1833 April 9] Mrs. Bayly gave Helen lessons in housekeeping, but Helen had trouble from the beginning ... When they arrived at the Observatory on April 25, Hamilton's three sisters were gone, and so were two of the three servants.

• Graves, Vol. II, p. 334
  It cannot be concealed that a great change had come over what had been the happy home of Hamilton : the illness of Lady Hamilton, affecting her mind and spirits, and thus disabling her in every way for her domestic duties, had commenced ... it caused her early in 1840 to leave the Observatory for lodgings in Dublin, and after the birth of her daughter in the autumn, led to her being domiciled with a sister in England, with whom she remained for about two years ... From this incapacity of Lady Hamilton it resulted that, for some time before she first left her home, relaxation of order in the household at the Observatory had set in, and made rapid progress ... Hamilton's sister Sydney came to his succour, and temporarily retrieved affairs ; so that he had comparative comfort, and was able occasionally to enjoy intercourse with friends and visitors at his house, while his children came under that regulation as to the minor points of outward appearance and observances which became their birth and dispositions.

• Hankins, p. 125:
  The functioning of the household ... declined again when Helen returned in 1842 ... [Still, William] was happier with her than without her. Sydney's controlling hand made him more comfortable, but it did not relieve his depression. Only Helen could do that.

• Graves, Vol. II, p. 414
  His sister Sydney had left the Observatory some time before this, and in the course of the spring and summer, in answer to inquiries from her, he wrote to her several letters, intended to facilitate her teaching of Latin to her pupils.

• William Rowan Hamilton to Rev. Mortimer O'Sullivan, D.D.:
  OBSERVATORY, February 25, 1859. ... To me it appears to be of vital importance that a protest against Calvinism should be raised by people like you --- if there be many such. And this I say, having a very dear sister living, whom I very much respect as well as love, and who is a devoted Calvinist ; being also -- notwithstanding, as I might almost be tempted to say --- but really I ought not to say it --- an extremely pious and practical Christian ... I have studied, to some extent, the infidelity of Burns, of Byron, and of Shelley ; and am satisfied that it was not Christianity, but Calvinism, which revolted them. May God have mercy on their souls! and on those who misrepresented Christianity.

• From a letter of Sydney Margaret Hamilton to the biographer Graves:
  Before leaving Dublin for the neighbourhood of Blackrock I went out to spend a parting day at the Observatory, bringing with me a dear little charge, a sweet little girl of weak powers. Her mind had never opened at all, till she was put under my care. She had been in the Earlswood Institution for Idiots, but was no better, rather worse after a year. When she came to me she could not speak so as to be understood, could not hold a spoon or needle, and so on. This will just give you an idea of the little girl.

  It pleased God that I should see that she was not idiotic. She had memory, affection, the power of distinguishing colours and people, pity and sympathy, manifested when I showed her a picture in which were represented dead camels in the Desert, &c. ; and she won upon my heart, and she loved me beyond anything on earth, just because I first showed that I considered her worth trouble. ... Still she was, as you can well suppose, far, far behind even common intellects in many respects.

  Well, I brought her to the Observatory ... [William] told me that he had played a game on the Icosian board with her, and "though of course I saw that she did not understand it," said he, "yet I assure you that many a duchess could not have carried it off so well. She had to me quite the air of one accustomed to Castle society, who considered that she condescended to oblige me." I almost felt tears rise as I ... thought of the pitiful sneers that poor nobodies would give at the idea of sitting down to play any game with poor Lizzie.

  

• From Isthmus of Darien Ship Canal by Edward Cullen [London: Effingham Wilson, 1853]:
  A moment's glance at the map of the world must convince the most sceptical of the immense advantages that would accrue to the commercial world by opening a Ship Canal Communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans ... As I was the only European who had ever crossed by the route I have proposed, and as the terror of the Darien Indians had been, for three centuries, so prevalent along the whole length and breadth of Terra Firma, I found it impossible to induce anyone to accompany me in my subsequent journeys in 1850 and 1851, and consequently had to contend, in England, against the enormous difficulties necessarily to be encountered in my early attempts to bring forward a project of such magnitude, supported only by my own statements ...

• Hankins, p. 370-373:
  In August she wrote to Hamilton again to say she had decided to go with Cullen to South America, and that she wanted to take [William's son, whiny would-be businessman] William Edwin with her. "Being literally devoid of money here, he may be extremely glad of such an opportunity of making the acquaintance of South American Merchants and of seeing the world." ... The emigrants departed from Liverpool in September, 1862.

  

• From The Observatory of Bogota, Colombia by Peter Abrahams [2005 November 2]:
  After Caldas was shot by order of the Spanish military in 1816, scientific work ceased until 1823, when a group led by French chemist Boussingault arrived, and used the observatory for meteorological work. This was followed by more inactivity, until the late 1820s, when came more meteorological studies; and in the 1830s, the publication of astronomical almanacs. In 1848, the observatory was used as classrooms for military engineers, until a military coup of 1854. The new regime had no use for the facility and rented it out as an ice cream parlor ... During 1862, the observatory was occupied by the army as a strategic site from whence to shoot and shell any opponents.

• Graves, Vol. III, p. 148:
  It appears, from an interesting and able letter from her to her brother, that Sydney Hamilton at this time desired much the rehabilitation of the Observatory at Bogotá in Columbia (of which the site was the nearest to the equator, and at the highest altitude of any observatory in the world), and even entertained the idea of offering her own services towards the undertaking, as accustomed to observe, and to make reductions of Astronomical observations.

  

• Hankins, pp. 371-374:
  The fact of the matter was that Cullen was a fraud ... [T]here is no indication Sydney or William Edwin ever acquired any land ... [T]hey hoped to reach Bogota and take up Cullen's claim. But this plan fell through and they went to Greytown [in Nicaragua] instead, in the spring of 1863. Greytown was already on the decline economically ... Sydney was enthusiastic about Greytown in spite of the difficulties of life there ... William Edwin reported eating turtle, sea cow, monkey chops, alligators' eggs, guava ... William Edwin decided to go to Canada, while Sydney with her naive optimism stayed on in Greytown. He later recalled the horrible food in Nicaragua, adding: "Of course SMH [Sydney] is not to blame as she had nothing better herself, but she might have given me some idea of the sort of miserable diet there. She is greatly to be envied in one way, she is so sanguine and believes so firmly, in the fortune she is going to make, but she's as easily imposed on as ever." Sydney collected and sold boxes of natural history specimens and gave lessons in Spanish to a Spaniard (who almost persuaded her to go into partnership with him in buying an island in Lake Nicaragua). William Edwin scoffed at her helplessness in financial matters. The lessons to the Spaniard were a financial loss because she fed him tea ("my tea by the way," mentions William Edwin) and bread and butter, all of which were hideously expensive. And yet Sydney remained eternally optimistic.

• Graves, Vol. III, p. 148:
  It may be mentioned that at this time [1862] Hamilton was a very solitary labourer. Except what the Observatory assistant, Mr. Thompson, could but rarely render him, he had no help keeping copies of mathematical work or correspondence. His manuscript books had some years previously borne witness to the assistance dutifully rendered to him in this way by his two sons ; but now both of them had left their home. His eldest son had in 1862 accompanied his Aunt Sydney, his father's only surviving sister, to Nicaragua, where for some years she devoted herself to keeping a school for girls at Greytown ...

• Graves, Vol. III, p. 213:
  An effort was then [1870] made to obtain a grant from [the Civil List Pension] for his only surviving sister, Sydney Margaret Hamilton, a lady who would in every respect have been a fitting recipint of the favour --- for she had in many ways aided her brother, both in domestic emergencies, and in the routine work of the Observatory, was of an exemplary character, and was at this time in very narrow circumstances. But though a memorial, urging the grant, was signed by the chief men of science and literature in Ireland, the Premier of the time, Mr. Gladstone, found himself unable to accede to its prayer. Miss Hamilton afterwards emigrated to New Zealand, where she still lives, esteemed and honoured.

• Hankins, p. 321:
  In 1875 ... her first letter back to Ireland said, "Who would imagine Sir George Grey in New Zealand studying Tait and the quaternions?" The Governor General had indeed been infected [sic] by the quaternions, to the extent that he wished to meet Hamilton's sister immediately upon her arrival.

• From The Great Scientific Memorial Search by Garry J. Tee [History of Australian Science Newsletter 32, 1994 March]:
  Her scientific friends tried twice to arrange a Civil List Pension for her from the British Government, but their appeals were rejected first by Disraeli and then by Gladstone. Accordingly, Sydney sailed from Dublin in 1875 to Auckland, to earn her living at the age of 64 as Matron of the Pauper Lunatic Asylum in Auckland. To her surprise, New Zealand's elder statesman Sir George Grey (1812-1896) was eager to meet her as sister of the great Hamilton. Grey had intense interest in science, he was a personal friend of many scientists, and at the age of 63 he was studying quaternions. Grey's magnificent gifts to Auckland Public Library include many papers which Sydney presented to him, including manuscripts of William Rowan Hamilton and editions of two of his major books which are earlier than any listed in any of the biographies and bibliographies of Hamilton.

• From a letter by Hamilton expert Anne van Weerden, 2018 June 30:
  I searched the catalogue [of the Auckland Public Library] and they do have two books indeed: Theory of Conjugate Functions, or Algebraic Couples (1835) and Researches Respecting Quaternions (1847), but those are not editions of his two books, the Lectures or the Elements, but published articles [from the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy]... Still, it is marvellous that they indeed have them, complete with the notes that Grey donated them and the inscription to Sydney Hamilton by her brother.

• Auckland, N. Z., Star, November 3, 1876, p. 2:
  A Coroner's inquest was held at the Lunatic Asylum this morning, before Dr Goldsbro', M.D., and a jury, on the remains of Ann Burns, who was admitted on the 1st instant, and died a few hours afterward ... Sydney Margaret Hamilton, matron, deposed when deceased was admitted she appeared to be dying. She was in a fearful condition of neglect, and had a tepid bath to cleanse her. She received every comfort and attention, but was unable to swallow any food. She came from Onehunga. She was nearly dumb. She was sent here because she had no other place of shelter. Her mother died on Friday week, and her brother was too poor to maintain her. Her age was 26 years ... The jury brought in a verdict to the effect that Ann Burns died from "Natural Causes, i.e. Maniacal Exhaustion."

• Graves,Vol. I, p. vii
  From his only surviving sister, Sydney Margaret Hamilton, now living in New Zealand, I have received assistance cordially rendered, and of most material worth.

• Auckland, N. Z., Star, March 4, 1889, p. 8:
  Deaths
  HAMILTON. --- On March 3, at the residence of Miss Robertson, top of Hobson-street, Sydney Margaret Hamilton, third daughter of the late Archibald Hamilton of 47, Lower Donnick-street, Dublin, and only surviving sister of the late Sir Wm. Rowan Hamilton, Astronomer-Royal and Royal Astronomer, Ireland ; aged 78 years.

• Tee, ibid:
  Grey attended Sydney's funeral in 1889, when she was buried in Rosebank Road cemetery in Auckland, across the road from Avondale College. Archdeacon Robert Perceval Graves, author of the 4-volume biography of William Rowan Hamilton, later arranged for a tombstone to be erected on Sydney's grave ...
  
  (University of Melbourne)

• Tee, ibid:
  In 1993, Marina View Primary School in Auckland inaugurated a Sydney Margaret Hamilton Prize in Mathematics. The pupils are taken to pay homage at the grave of Sydney Margaret Hamilton.

• From Sydney Margaret HAMILTON - a gutsy woman!, a post on flickr by SandyEm [2011 September 24]:
  I wonder if they still pay homage? Surely if so, then it may have been mentioned how neglected the grave is now and something may happen to reinstate it to its former glory. As mentioned on Lisa Truttman's blog Timespanner: "At present, her grave is sadly neglected. The grave itself has been engulfed by a wild tree allowed to grow right in the grave area itself, and the headstone is being crowded out by the trunk of the tree". That was on her visit in 2002 and [she] subsequently posted it on her blog 2008.

• From The Prelude by William Wordsworth (I.340-344):
  Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows
  Like harmony in music ; there is a dark
  Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
  Discordant elements, makes them cling together
  In one society ...

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