He was educated at Downside School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a scholar, obtaining Firsts in both parts of the Classical Tripos in 1925 and 1927 respectively.
[1] Hamson taught at University College, London, before returning to Cambridge in 1932 as assistant lecturer.
In 1934 he was appointed university lecturer and elected a fellow of Trinity, where he would remain for the rest of his life.
[1] At the outbreak of World War II, he sent his wife and daughter to the United States and was commissioned into the British Army in 1940.
[1] Hamson was Treasurer of Gray's Inn (an unusual honour for an academic) in 1975, having been elected a bencher in 1956.