Author: Paul, Hamilton
Biography:
PAUL, Hamilton (1773-1854: ODNB)
Born on 10 Apr. 1773 at Dailly, Ayrshire, he was the son of John Paul (d 1799) and his wife Margaret Neilson; they had married in 1766. He was educated at the parish school and the University of Glasgow where he befriended Thomas Campbell (q.v.) and was known for writing poetry. On leaving university he became a tutor but then purchased a share in the Ayr Advertiser and managed the paper for three years before being licensed to preach in 1800. Beginning with a position at Colyton he held various church posts until he was appointed minister at the united parish of Broughton, Kilbucho, and Glenholm in Peeblesshire. His defence of Robert Burns’s (q.v.) religion and some of his more controversial poems in his 1819 edition of Burns’s poems drew criticism from the church and in a review by Dr. Andrew Thompson in The Christian Instructor. An ardent supporter of the Burns Club, he helped to ensure the preservation of the Auld Brig o' Doon which Tam o’Shanter races across. He never married and died on 28 Feb. 1854 at Broughton where there is a memorial in the churchyard. (ODNB 24 June 2020; James Gibson, The Bibliography of Robert Burns [1881]; ancestry.co.uk 22 Sept. 2025; findmypast.co.uk 22 Sept. 2025) SR