Colonial Despatches

Thomas Hamilton, who was known as Lord Binning, or “Binny”, before he succeeded his father as the 9th Earl of Haddington, had a remarkable appetite for politics. Hamilton was the lord lieutenant of Ireland from 1834 to 1835; in 1841 he declined the position of governor general of India, and instead became first lord of the Admiralty.1

• 1. H. C. G. Matthew, Hamilton, Thomas, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.