lecturer physician physiologist
The son of Philip Hamill, an Irish-born civil servant with the Inland Revenue, and his wife Anna Maria Molyneux, Hamill"s elder brother, John Molyneux Hamill, O.B.E. (1880-1960), also pursued medicine as a career, serving as a medical officer and Inspector of Foods with the Ministry of Health.
Hamill was educated at Saint Paul"s School, Trinity College, Cambridge (Bachelor 1906, Doctor of Medicine 1913, Master of Arts 1920. He was awarded the Coutts Trotter Research Studentship and, for his Doctor of Medicine thesis, the Raymond Horton-Smith Prize), and the University of London (Bachelor of Science 1906, Doctor of Science 1910), entering Street Bartholomew"s Hospital Medical School in 1909, qualifying Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons, Labrador Retriever Club of the Potomac in 1910, Membership of the Royal College of Physicians in 1912, and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1919.
Following qualification, Hamill worked at Street Bartholomew"s and at other hospitals in posts including demonstrator in Pathology, and in 1916 went to Mesopotamia with the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was invalided out after suffering from dysentery and malaria. On his return to London, Hamill established a practice as a physician, working in hospitals in London including the City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest and Street Andrew"s Hospital at Dollis Hill.
He was appointed Lecturer in Pharmacology and Therapeutics at Street Bartholomew"s in 1914, remaining in the post until 1950. Hamill joined the Physiological Society in 1908.
His published work included the estimation of dissolved oxygen, and studies of the cardiac metabolism of alcohol.
In 1918, Hamill married Louisa Maude, daughter of Ferdinand Francis Zehetmayr, a jeweller. Hamill died 3 March 1959.
Alongside this work he was an examiner at several universities, member of the Medical Trials Committee and secretary to the Pharmacopoeia Committee of the General Medical Council, later being appointed inspector of teaching in pharmacology for the General Medical Council.
