Gerald Bernard Francis Hamilton (né Souter; 1 November 1890 – 9 June 1970) was a British memoirist, critic and internationalist known as "the wickedest man in Europe".
[1] Born Gerald Frank Hamilton Souter in Shanghai on 1 November 1890,[2] he was educated at Lambrook preparatory and Rugby School in England.
Hamilton's father, Frank Thomas Edward Souter (1863–1941), was a businessman of Scottish descent with commercial interests in China, and his mother, Edith Minnie, née Holliday (1860–1890), was English.
[4] Hamilton was interned in the United Kingdom during the First World War because, he claimed, of his association with Roger Casement, the Irish nationalist later executed for treason.
They moved in together at 91 Kinnerton Street in Belgravia and later bought a cottage called "Little Basing" in Vicarage Road, Bray, Berkshire, where Johnson could go sailing, which was one of his hobbies.
"[8] In addition, he had a picture of "My wife", Suzanne 'Suzy' Renou, a close friend whom he had wed in a marriage of convenience at Chelsea Register Office on 29 April 1933 for a payment of £20,000.
[3] In the post-war period, Hamilton drifted towards the far-right: he was active on behalf of Oswald Mosley, and in 1948 travelled to the United States, with the intention of procuring a loan for the Franco government from the Knights of Columbus.