Susan Euphemia (Beckford) Hamilton (1786 - 1859)

Born 14 May 1786 in Château La Tour, Vevay, Switzerland

Ancestors

Wife of Alexander Hamilton KG PC — married 26 Apr 1810 in London, England

Descendants

Died 27 May 1859 at age 73 in 12 Portman Square, London, England

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Biography

Susan (Beckford) Hamilton is Notable.

Susan was the daughter of William Beckford and Margaret Gordon.

She married Alexander Hamilton on 26 Apr 1810.^[1] As a result of her marriage, Susan Euphemia Beckford was styled as Duchess of Hamilton on 16 February 1819.

William Beckford of Fonthill Gifford, Wiltshire (1760-1844) included music among his many talents and interests, and is said to have been, at the age of five, a piano pupil of the nine year old Mozart, then visiting England. His love of music was inherited by his second daughter, Susan Euphemia, to whom in 1828 he gave this Pleyel piano, now in the Hamilton Collection at Lennoxlove. Her musical interests were well known. Probably during a visit to Italy in 1821, she was made an honorary member of the Philharmonic Academy. The Lennoxlove Archives still include the Latin diploma she received, the programme, in Italian, for a concert she presumably attended and a document with a paper seal entitled 'C U C Curiante micenio Custode Generale d�Arcadia, all Melita ed Erudita Signora Susanna Eufemia, duchessa D'Hamilton e Brandon, Acclamazione.' In about 1835 Willes Maddox painted her sitting at a piano. The Pleyel piano would certainly have been in the duchess's apartments at Hamilton Palace, where many notable musicians, including Frederic Chopin, were guests and no doubt performed.

The distinguished Italian virtuoso cellist and composer, Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805), spent the latter part of his life in Spain. It was during a visit to Portugal in 1787 that he first became friendly with William Beckford (1760-1844), the wealthy English dilettante, whose daughter, Susan (1786-1859), born in France the previous year, later became (in 1810) the wife of Alexander, 10th Duke of Hamilton (1767-1852). This friendship undoubtedly explains the presence in the Hamilton Collection of an elegant music manuscript book of eleven sonatas by Boccherini for solo cello with either cello or keyboard basso continuo.

The pages displayed here contain the first two movements of the third of the eleven sonatas, in C major. The first movement, maestoso assai, is stately and slow, with highly decorated solo passages. Its final dominant chord introduces the much faster allegro. The undated but almost certainly 18th-century manuscript is the work of a Venice firm of professional copyists, and it is likely that the composer had many of his works produced in this way for sale or for presentation to friends and patrons. Much of Boccherini's work was published in his lifetime, but six of these sonatas have evidently not been published. A gold-tooled inscription on the front cover of the manuscript reads 'The Dutchess of Hamilton', a title which Susan assumed after 1819 when her husband inherited the dukedom.

If a cellist, Duchess Susan would have had to have been reasonably accomplished to have played these sonatas. She certainly owned a piano but the solo parts, which are written mainly in the cello C-clef (the present-day tenor clef), could not be read easily by a pianist, though realisation of the unfigured bass line would not be a problem for an experienced keyboard player. The musicianship and knowledge of harmony which this required was not normally part of a lady's musical education, so perhaps unsurprisingly, the pages of this manuscript show little sign of the wear and tear of practical use. For Duchess Susan it may well have remained a handsomely bound (or re-bound) collector's item and a memento of her father's friendship with Boccherini.

Sources

• Lodge, Edmund "The Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire as at Present Existing", London: Hurst and Blackett, 1972

1. ↑ Lodge - Peerage and Baronetage: p. 275

See also:

• Wikipedia: Susan Hamilton, Duchess of Hamilton

• Wikidata: Item Q24055383, en:Wikipedia

• The Peerage: Susan Euphemia Beckford

• Hamilton Palace