Corporal Richard Ernest McLaughlin Hamilton
Richard Ernest McLaughlin Hamilton was born on 10 July 1896 at Gortin, Omagh, County Tyrone, the eleventh or twelfth of fourteen or fifteen children of merchant William James Hamilton and his wife Anne (née Bailey). He also had six half-siblings from his father's previous marriage to Isabella McLaughlin. By the time of the 1911 Census he was living in Gortin with his parents, six siblings and two half siblings.
Hamilton enlisted in the North Irish Horse between 11 and 13 November 1915 (No.1851 – later Corps of Hussars No.71591). He trained at the regiment's Antrim reserve camp before embarking for France sometime between 1916 and 1918, where he was posted to one of the squadrons of the 1st North Irish Horse Regiment. This regiment served as corps cavalry to VII, XIX, then V Corps from its establishment in May 1916 until February-March 1918, when it was dismounted and converted to a cyclist unit, serving as corps cyclists to V Corps until the end of the war.
Hamilton remained with the regiment throughout the war. He was wounded, probably gassed, in September or early October 1918 during the Advance to Victory offensive.
On 25 February 1919 he was demobilised and transferred to Class Z, Army Reserve.
After the war Hamilton lived at Londonderry, where he worked as a motor salesman. On 15 September 1925 he married Marian Macauley in the Drumgooland Presbyterian Church, County Down. He died in the Craigavon Hospital, County Armagh, on 4 October 1974.
Image sourced from Ancestry.com public member trees - contributor Michael Bayko.