Alexander Hamilton trained initially as a surgeon, joining the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1751 and serving as its president from 1776 to 1778. After lecturing in midwifery at the University of Edinburgh alongside James Young, he became Professor of Midwifery in 1783, the same year he was awarded an MD by the University of St Andrews. Hamilton served as Professor until 1800, when he retired in favour of his son James Hamilton, who would also later serve as President of this College. The two men co-founded the Edinburgh Lying-In Hospital, which would later become the Simpson Memorial Hospital. Hamilton died in 1802.
