The main commercial centre is located around Beaumont Street and boasts a vibrant multicultural atmosphere providing an array of restaurants, retail, fashion and commercial outlets along with day-to-day services such as pharmacies, banks, florists, hairdressers, fruit shops and delicatessens.

[2] The discovery of coal near St Peter's Church in the area known as Cameron's Hill marked the beginnings of the township of Hamilton (originally known as Pittown, Borehole or Happy Flat).

[2] In 1947, Lettesi (a settler group made up of nearly 150 families from the village of Lettopalena in the Abruzzo Region of Italy), initially settled in Islington, but they soon expanded into the nearby suburbs of Hamilton and Mayfield.

In the early nineteenth century, a time when education was the privilege of the elite few; Mechanics' Institutes were set up in Britain and later, Australia.

[5] As source of income, the institute could hold dances, plays, movies and hire out a billiard table which started be replaced by social clubs.

[5] The Hamilton Mechanics Institute has architectural significance as a particularly fine and intact example of one in the Renaissance Revival style.

[6] Located between Tudor and Milton Streets,[7] the Hamilton Mechanics Institute was founded in 1859 and the building was constructed in stages between 1869 and 1903.

[6] The institute was granted a block of land on Gray Street in 1859, but meetings were first held at a private house and in rented rooms.

[6] The Hamilton institute was originally a wooden structure built in 1862,[8] and the first building was a lecture hall designed by the architect JS Jenkins and constructed in 1869.

[6] In 1872 this was extended to designs by the local architect William Smith, with a Free Library built west of the lecture hall and separated from it by a wide hallway.