Anthony Hamilton (Archdeacon of Colchester)

Anthony Hamilton (1739–1812) was an English Anglican priest, archdeacon of Colchester from 1775.

His father Alexander Hamilton was the fifth son of William Hamilton the antiquarian, who died in 1724; he married the heiress Charlotte Styles, and so acquired the Essex manor of Holyfield (Hallifield), in the north-east of the parish of Waltham Abbey. It remained in the family into the 19th century. The Hamilton family owned also the Debden Hall farm and estate (see Debden House). The owner of Debden Hall Was Alex. Hamilton on a map of 1777.

Venn's Alumni Cantabrigienses proposes the identification of Alexander Hamilton as the London solicitor of the name. He moved to Loughton, transferring the remains of Charlotte and three children to be reburied there in 1744.

Anthony Hamilton was a younger son of the marriage. He was educated at Harrow School and entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1755. He graduated B.A. there in 1760, M.A. in 1763, and D.D. in 1775.

Ordained deacon in 1762 and priest 1763, Hamilton became vicar of Fulham, and then in 1766 of Orsett in Essex. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1773, and of the Royal Society in 1777. In 1770, on the death of John Jortin, Hamilton became Archdeacon of London; in 1775 he gave up the post, to become Archdeacon of London.

In 1776 Hamilton became rector of Much Hadham in Hertfordshire, and gave up his Fulham living; he became also vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields. In the 1790s he lived at 16 Savile Row, London. He was buried at Loughton, with memorials set up in the Much Hadham and Little Hadham churches.

Hamilton married Anne Terrick, daughter of Richard Terrick; William Richard Hamilton was their son. Anthony Hamilton the Archdeacon of Taunton was their second son, and the father of Bishop Walter Hamilton.