Hamilton

Augustus James Hamilton Courbarron was born at 4.am on the 12th June 1863. The birth took place on his father’s farm in the town of Millbrook in the Parish of St Helier in Jersey, Channel islands. At the time of his birth his surname was written ‘Cour-barron’ but by the time his brother Stanhope was born in 1865 the hyphen had been dropped. His father, Frederick A Courbarron was a farmer and also born in Jersey, had married Mary Hamilton in her native Ireland and taken her to Jersey to live.

Mary Hamilton could trace her ancestry back to, and beyond, King Edward I and Phillip of France on her father’s side. Her Grandfather, James Hamilton, had married the Hon. Helen Pakenham 5th daughter of Edward Micheal Pakenham the 2nd Earl Longford. Helen’s sister, Katherine (Kitty), had married Arthur Wellesley Ist Duke of Wellington. Mary was born at St Ernans near Ballintra in County Donegal in 1827. St Ernans was a house owned by the Hamiltons and built by her father, John Hamilton of Brownhall, on an island in the estuary of the river Eske in 1826.

Brownhall estate had been in the Hamilton family since the early 17th century. The original house of the Hamilton’s was located at Murvagh, near Ballintra. In 1697 John Hamilton and his wife, Jane Crighton (daughter of Col Abraham Crighton), moved the family seat and established it at Ballintra where it still stands today. St Ernans and Brownhall House were on an estate of 17,955 acres and the Hamiltons were considered to be among the great landowners of Ireland. Brownhall is a three storey late-Georgian residence designed by famed architect of the period Robert Woodgate. It has a four bay front with a later single storey portico, a three bay side with a two storey wing set back. Internally there is a triglyph frieze in the hall with a heavy mid-19th century cornice in the Drawing Room and late cornice in the Dining Room.

Frederick Augustus and Mary Courbarron had four children; Augustus - known as James; Stanhope Fredrick; John Edward - known as Jack and Helen, named for her great grandmother.

‘Augustus’ was a name that my G G Grandfather did not like and he only ever used it in official papers preferring to use the name ‘James’ all other times. His family called him ‘Jimmie’; he mostly signed his numerous letters to his aunt/godmother in New York, Helen de Veer…”Your affectionate godson, J H Courbarron”. No-one ever called him ‘Augustus’.

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