James Hamilton, 7th Earl of Abercorn

James Hamilton, 7th Earl of Abercorn FRS PC (22 March 1686 – 11 January 1744) was a Scottish and Irish nobleman and peer. He was the son of James Hamilton, 6th Earl of Abercorn and Elizabeth Reading. He was styled Lord Paisley from 1701 until his accession in 1734.

Offspring

In April 1711, he married Anne Plumer (1690–1776), by whom he had seven children:

• James Hamilton, 8th Earl of Abercorn (1712–1789)
• Captain Hon. John Hamilton (c. 1714–1755)
• Hon. William Hamilton, died young
• Reverend Hon. George Hamilton (11 August 1718 – 26 November 1787), Canon of Windsor, married Elizabeth Onslow (d. 1800) and had issue
• Hon. Plumer Hamilton, died young
• Hon. William Hamilton (18 February 1721 – 1744)
• Lady Anne Hamilton (12 June 1715 – 14 December 1792), married on 16 August 1746 Sir Henry Mackworth, 6th Baronet

Scientist

A scientist, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society on 10 November 1715, and published Calculations and Tables on the Attractive Power of Lodestones, a book on magnetism, in 1729.

Privy Councils

He was sworn a Privy Counsellor in Great Britain on 20 July 1738 and a Privy Counsellor in Ireland on 26 September 1739. On 17 October of that same year, George II issued a royal charter to the nation's first orphanage for abandoned children, the Foundling Hospital, of which Hamilton was a founding Governor.