William Hamilton (university principal)
Scottish Presbyterian theologian and minister of the Church of Scotland
William Hamilton (1669–1732) was a Scottish Presbyterian Theologian and Minister of the Church of Scotland. He was Professor of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh from 1709 to 1732, and Principal of the University from 1730 to 1732.
Life
He was born in 1669 the son of Gavin Hamilton of Airdrie, North Lanarkshire. He studied at Edinburgh University graduating around 1688.
He was ordained as a Church of Scotland minister in September 1694 at Cramond Kirk. In 1709 he left Cramond to be Professor of Divinity at Edinburgh University. He was also Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on five occasions: 1712, 1716, 1720, 1727 and 1730.
The elder Hamilton was an influential figure in the growth of "early moderatism", and several of his students, including Wishart, were prominent Rankenians.
In 1732, having been promoted to Principal of Edinburgh University in 1730, he took on the additional role of Collegiate Minister to the New (West) Kirk in St Giles which was then split into four parishes internally.
He died in Edinburgh on 12 November 1732.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “William Hamilton (university principal)” as scottish Presbyterian theologian and minister of the Church of Scotland. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as scottish Presbyterian theologian and minister of the Church of Scotland. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 8, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q8010757. VIAF identifies the subject as 34311681. The Library of Congress control number is nr91018168. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1669, 1732, 1709 and 1730.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Hamilton (university principal)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.