Obituary Lady Hamilton

Press, 2 March 1982, Page 3

Obituary Lady Hamilton

Lady Hamilton, widow of Sir William Hamilton, the famous jet boat pioneer, died at her Mackenzie Country home yesterday. She died after a brief illness, aged 86, four years to the month after the death of her husband. Although Lady Hamilton in recent years spent much of her time at her home in Halswell, her wish to spend her final days in the old family homestead at Irishman Creek, was fulfilled. Born Peggy Wills in Hert-

fordshire, England, in August, 1895, Lady Hamilton was educated at a private boarding school in England. In her late teens she answered the call for women to work in munitions factories, a decision she admitted in her book, “Wild Irishman,” written half a century later, worried her a great deal.

She wrote: “I thought very hard about this ... here I was praying every night for the safety of everyone dear to me at the front and yet I would be working 12 hours a day towards the making of munitions to kill other peoples’ loved ones. Why did I eventually go into muniI think, because I felt I had led a too sheltered life ... I wanted to toughen myself, to be'able to respect myself.”

She later recounted the grimness of her experiences in her j first book, “Three Years or the Duration.” After the First World War, in. an attempt to get over the loss of her older brother, Oliver, the family had a holiday in New Zealand, a trip which indirectly was to lead to a meeting with Bill Hamilton in England a couple of years later.

In the intervening period, Lady Hamilton had embarked on a dairy industry training course, an unconventional move for young women in those days. Her

ambition was to become a farmer in New Zealand; instead, she married Sir William after a whirlwind courtship in 1923 and became a farmer’s wife, but certainly not one to be tied to the kitchen. She greatly enjoyed the back country life and regularly helped with mustering and other outdoor chores. As Hitler gained power in the late 1930 s Sir William and Lady Hamilton worked together from their isolated base in the Mackenzie Country to help Jews escape from Nazi Germany. Even to this day the exact details of their involvment remain a mystery but at least four families were able to escape to freedom. Mr Jon Hamilton, Lady Hamilton’s only son, recalled last evening that two of the refugees — Dr Helmut and Vera Pappe — were brought out to Irishman Creek as

tutors. They had never met the Hamiltons before.

In the 1950 s Lady Hamilton became deeply involved with her husband's development work on the jet boat and she accompanied him on many early excursions. This remarkable woman thought nothing of leaping into icy rivers to push her husband’s boat off a shingle shelf or of floating kilometres downstream to test a lifejacket. Many years later when Sir William retired from boating he used to tell well-wishers: “I had to quit because Peg got too old to push.” Lady Hamilton nevertheless retained a keen interest in the growth of jet boating. She became patron of the Jet Boat Association after the death of Sir William in 1978 and donated a trophy to foster an interest among women in the sport. Failing eyesight prompted Lady Hamilton to fly to Honolulu early last year for an operation which fully restored the sight of one eye. Although aged 85, this encouraged her to start writing her third book which she planned to name “From Donkey Cart to Concorde” — an idea sparked by a trip back to England in 1979 in a supersonic aircraft. i . Lady Hamilton also contributed the occasional letter and article to “The Press.” the last occasion being in August, 1981, when she took the American columnist, Mike Royko, to task over his views of the Royal wedding. “May I say that for the rest of my life, -which can't be long, I would like the chance to give you a punch on tbe chops. I'm sure that 50 years ago ...” she concluded her article.

Lady Hamilton is survived by her son, Jon, and daughter, June. Mrs Morgan of Irishman Creek. A graveside service will be held at Burkes Pass tomorrow.