The Hamilton Family
Lived at 47 and 51 St Andrews Drive, and donated the Hamilton Fountain in Maxwell Park.
Prominent baker and grain merchant Thomas Hamilton brought his family to live in the new garden suburb in 1851, at the very start of Pollokshields' development. The family moved into their newly built house at 51 St Andrews Drive which was christened Primrose Villa after their mother's maiden name.
Once they'd put down roots, the family stayed put with the two sons and two daughters establishing a separate household in the smaller Woodbine Cottage at 47 St Andrews Drive. John and Thomas carried on the various family businesses in Hamilton, Larkhall and Newton. while their sisters Christina and Elizabeth, kept house and contributed to good causes in the neighbourhood.
When Thomas died, John instructed his trustees that upon the death of the survivor of the two sisters his entire estate was to be realised in order to purchase a collection of oil paintings for the Kelvingrove.
John died in 1904 and when the sisters gifted the Hamilton Fountain in Maxwell Park in memory of their two brothers in 1908 they stated that they had directed their own estates for the same purpose. However, the bequest did not become effective until the death of Christina in 1927.
FCB Cadell, Interior The Orange Blind, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum presented by the Trustees of the Hamilton Bequest, 1928
The fund is still administered by the Hamilton Trustees and has presented some 80 paintings to the gallery for the benefit of the people of Glasgow.
As a result of the Hamilton family's generosity the collection includes paintings by Camille Pissarro, Henri Fantin -Latour, Henry Moret, Paul Gauguin, Mary Cassatt, Claude Monet, Eugene Delacroix, Alfred Sisley, Paul Signac, Armand Guillaumin, Henri Harpignies, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Kennedy and F.C.B. Cadell.