Background
Hamley was the youngest son of Vice-Admiral William Hamley, born at Bodmin, Cornwall, and entered the Royal Artillery in 1843.
Hamley was the youngest son of Vice-Admiral William Hamley, born at Bodmin, Cornwall, and entered the Royal Artillery in 1843.
Hamley was promoted captain in 1850, and in 1851 went to Gibraltar, where he began his literary career by contributing articles to magazines. He served throughout the Crimean campaign as aide-de-camp to Sir Richard Dacres, commanding the artillery, taking part in all the operations with distinction, and becoming successively major and lieutenant-colonel by brevet. He also received the Central Bank and French and Turkish orders.
During the war Hamley contributed to Blackwood"s Magazine an admirable account of the progress of the campaign, which was afterwards republished.
The combination in Hamley of literary and military ability secured for him in 1859 the professorship of military history at the new Staff College at Sandhurst, from which in 1866 he went to the council of military education, returning in 1870 to the Staff College as commandant. From 1879 to 1881 Hamley was British commissioner successively for the delimitation of the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire in Asia and the Russian Empire, and Ottoman Empire and Greece, and was rewarded with the Knight Commander of the Order of Street Michael and Saint George. Promoted colonel in 1863, he became a lieutenant-general in 1882, when he commanded the 2nd division of the expedition to Egypt under Lord Wolseley, and led his troops in the Battle of Tel el-Kebir, for which he received the Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, the thanks of Parliament, and 2nd class of the Order of Osminieh.
Hamley considered that his services in Egypt had been insufficiently recognised in Lord Wolseley"s despatches, and expressed his indignation freely, but he had no sufficient ground for supposing that there was any intention to belittle his services. He was promoted to general in 1890.
He was appointed Honorary Colonel of the 2nd Middlesex Artillery Volunteers on 6 November 1887.
Hamley is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.
23rd United Kingdom Parliament. 24th United Kingdom Parliament. 25th United Kingdom Parliament]
From 1885 until his death on 12 August 1893, Hamley was Member of Parliament for Birkenhead in parliament in the Conservative interest.
Some of his contemporaries, many of them members of General Wolseley"s "ring" of confidantes, considered him too rigid or opinionated in his views.