Annotation:Hamilton House (1)

Back to Hamilton House (1)

---

HAMILTON HOUSE [1]. AKA and see "Colonel Hamilton's Delight," "Honorable Colonel Hamilton's Delight (The)," "New Bumpkin." Scottish, Jig. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABB (Neil): AABBCC (Hunter). This melody was composed by Edinburgh composer and cello teacher Joseph Reinagle (b. 1762) about 1783 and was originally called "Colonel Hamilton's Delight." The name Hamilton derives from the Old English word hamel, meaning scarred, mutilated or crooked, and when combined with the ending means 'the broken hills' (Matthews, 1972). There is a Scottish Country Dance called "Hamilton House," which portrays in the steps "the peculiar succession of the earldom of Selkirk: if the Duke of Hamilton, head of the house, has a younger brother, then the earldom passes to the latter rather than to the duke. Thus the earldom has on three occasions (1885, 1940, 1994) passed to a duke's brother. (If Lord Selkirk has a surviving son, the title descends normally.) In the dance, the first lady (just widowed) sets off, dances with the new Duke and then turns his younger brother before coming back to line up between the new Duke and his wife. The concept behind the dance has nothing to do with flirting, however this can be an interesting side-line." (quoted from Wikipedia [1].)

However, there is a Hamilton House, or Lord Magdalen's House, in the old village of Preston, built for Sir John Hamilton, brother of Thomas Hamilton (1563 - 1637), the 1st Earl of Haddington.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Hunter (Fiddle Music of Scotland), 1988; No. 286. Neil (The Scots Fiddle), 1991; No. 3, p. 6.

Recorded sources:

---