[4] As a fourth year medical student in 1914, he volunteered as part of the 1st Belgian Unit of the British Red Cross.
As a prisoner of war he was sentenced to death for suspected sabotage, but following an American intervention was released by the Germans along with other medical and nursing staff.
Hamilton and Vera had one son, who died aged 15 in a railway accident [3] while returning from evacuation in the north of England.
Hamilton was incarcerated for three years in 1949 for a mental condition involving mania and paranoia, which was eventually successfully treated with lithium therapy.
He died of intestinal obstruction (or subsequent surgical complications) secondary to colonic carcinoma, on 25 March 1961 in Malaga.