Tuesday 28 June 2016

Mary C.D. Hamilton (1850 - 1943) - British Poet

Mary's full name was Mary Christian Dundas Hamilton. She was born on 24th May 1850 in Edinburgh and baptised on 6th June 1850 in Coylton, Ayr, Scotland.  Her parents were John Hamilton and his wife Catharine Barbara Hamilton, nee Stobart. (I wonder if she was related to the Stobart family into which Mabel St. Clair Stobart married (nee Boulton) ? - see http://inspirationalwomenofww1.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/mabel-st-clair-stobart-1862-1954.html  

Mary's brother was Lewis Boswell Inman Hamilton who was born on 13th February 1858 in Edinburgh.  

Mary seems to have been a poet.  She lived in Sussex towards the end of her life. 
During the First World War, possibly inspired because her nephew - Brigadier James Melvill Hamilton - was awarded the DSO during the First World War, Mary wrote some lines during the war which have now become very famous.  The verse, with the title “A Hymn for Aviators”, was originally printed in "The Times" newspaper in London in 1915, and was published in William Reginald Wheeler's WW1 anthology "A book of verse of the Great War" published by Yale University Press, New Haven in 1917.   This anthology is available as a down-load https://archive.org/stream/abookversegreat00wheegoog/abookversegreat00wheegoog_djvu.txt

Additional information very kindly supplied by M. Devoy.  If anyone has any further information about Mary or a photograph of her please get in touch. 

My thanks to Sussex Newspapers for their help in this search.