Thomas Tristram Hamilton, Jr.

Image Source: "UNC-W Presidents and Chancellors." William Madison Randall Library.

Thomas Tristram Hamilton, Jr., was appointed to the ECTC board in 1946 by Governor Robert Gregg Cherry (1891–1957) to fill the seat of the late Alexander Boyd Andrews, Jr., (1877–1946). Hamilton served the three years remaining in Andrews’ term, and then in 1949 took a new position out of state, as director of secondary education in the Virginia State Department of Education. While his service to ECTC was brief, it did occasion an intersection between East Carolina as a burgeoning school in the east and a newly founded institution of higher education, Wilmington College (now, UNC-W), as it opened its doors to students in 1947. Mediating the interaction between these two schools and their mission of educational service to eastern North Carolina in the early post-WWII years was one of Hamilton’s accomplishments as an educator and trustee.

Hamilton served during a time of administrative flux at East Carolina: following President Leon R. Meadows’ resignation in scandal in 1944, Howard J. McGinnis (1882–1971) was named acting president of the school. Dr. Dennis H. Cooke (1904–1982) was hired in 1946 as full-time president, but then resigned in the spring of 1947 to take a position at Woman’s College in Greensboro (now UNC-G). Cooke soon left that job to become president of High Point College. With Cooke’s resignation, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Clyde A. Erwin (1897–1952), then ex officio chair of the ECTC board, appointed three board members — Hamilton, Radford “Ralph” M. Garrett (1886–1955) of Greenville, and Thomas J. Hackney (1889–1971) of Wilson — to a search committee for a new president. The committee soon recommended Dr. John D. Messick (1897–1993), then administrative assistant to the president of the State Teachers College in Montclair, New Jersey. Messick was subsequently hired by the board and remained at East Carolina until 1959.

Hamilton was one of the few professional educators to serve on the ECTC board, and the only one on the presidential search committee appointed in 1947. The same year, incidentally, Hamilton was named, concurrent with his job as principal of New Hanover High School, president of Wilmington College (now UNC-W). In the post-WWII years, Hamilton, aware of the shortage of institutions of higher education ready to meet the needs of veterans taking advantage of the GI Bill, had emerged as an advocate of a junior college for Wilmington. Since 1935, he had served as the principal of New Hanover High School and knew firsthand that many of its graduates would have happily gone to college locally if given the chance. Certain that there would be sufficient applicants for admission to a newly established college, Hamilton soon won over local business and civic leaders to the cause, convincing them that local funding for such an entity would be good for the community and the region as well.

Wilmington College opened its doors on Sept. 4, 1947, to 238 students, using the physical facilities of New Hanover High for classrooms and administrative space while its new campus was under construction. Hamilton’s importance to the new school through his dual role as principal of New Hanover High and president of Wilmington College was extraordinary. While somewhat unconventional, this practical arrangement bred prompt success with accreditation and increased enrollment following. In 1958, the new school became a state-supported college under the authority of the N.C. Board of Higher Education, and in 1969, it was elevated to university status as the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

In the spring of 1949, the overlap in Hamilton’s roles as an ECTC trustee, New Hanover High principal, and Wilmington College president helped him to bring former president of ECTC, Dr. Dennis Cooke, to Wilmington to deliver the commencement address. At that time, Cooke was on the verge of taking his newest position, that of president of High Point College. Within a couple of years, Dr. John Messick, Cooke’s successor, spoke at Wilmington College as well. By that time, however, Hamilton, a dynamic educator, had moved to Virginia to serve as state director of secondary education. He retired in 1965, after serving as director of publication and teaching materials for the Virginia public school system, a position he had held since 1958.

Hamilton was born in Dillon, South Carolina, near that state’s border with eastern North Carolina. He attended public schools in both states and then graduated, in 1923, from Wake Forest College (then north of Raleigh, later Wake Forest University). He subsequently did graduate work at the University of North Carolina and completed a master’s degree at Columbia University in New York City. By 1929, he had completed course requirements for a doctoral degree at the University of Illinois. The same year, however, he took a position with the Department of Secondary Education at Peabody College, and then from that date until 1935, served as research assistant in the Bureau of Educational Research at the University of Illinois. From 1933–1935, Hamilton taught as an assistant professor of education and director of practice teaching at Mississippi College in Clinton, Mississippi. In 1935, he moved to Wilmington as principal of New Hanover High School.

In many respects, Hamilton’s energetic and exemplary devotion to educational transformation in eastern North Carolina foreshadowed that of East Carolina’s new leaders, John D. Messick and then Leo W. Jenkins (1913–1989).

Sources

• Culley, Jr., W. J. “Schools’ Primary Objective is Training Good Citizens, Speaker Tells City Teachers.” Roanoke World-News. August 30, 1949. P. 11.
• “Division Chief of Education Unit to Retire.” Richmond Times-Dispatch. July 30, 1965. P. 11.
• “Dr. Cooke Addresses Grads in Wilmington.” News and Observer. June 1, 1949. P. 10.
• “Dr. Dennis Cooke of ECTC Resigns: T. T. Hamilton, Jr., Named on Committee to Select New President.” Wilmington Morning Star. May 22, 1947. P. 1.
• “Governor Names T. T. Hamilton: Local Educator Appointed Trustee of ECTC by Gregg Cherry.” Wilmington Morning Star. December 18, 1946. P. 1.
• “Hamilton.” Richmond Times-Dispatch. December 15, 1989. P. 14.
• Jenkins, Jay. “New Hanover Opens College Supported by County Funds.” News and Observer. September 14, 1947. P. 6.
• “Need of College Cited in Speech: Board of Education Distributes Address by T. T. Hamilton.” Wilmington Morning Star. December 13, 1946. P. 3.
• “North Carolina Educator Goes to State Post: Thomas T. Hamilton, Jr., Appointed Director of Secondary Education.” Virginian Pilot. May 26, 1949. P. 26.
• “Principal Gets New Position.” News and Observer. May 27, 1949. P. 22.
• Presidents and Chancellors Collection. Series I: Thomas Tristram Hamilton and John T. Hoggard. University Archives Repository. Identifier: UA-RG-03. William Madison Randall Library. University of North Carolina Wilmington. Wilmington, N. C. https://archivesspace.uncw.edu/repositories/4/resources/711
• “School Heads Will Convene: T. T. Hamilton to Serve as Discussion Leader.” Wilmington Morning Star. June 29, 1947. P. 9.
• “Thomas Hamilton Elected Head of Athletic Association.” Wilmington Morning Star. June 1, 1947. P. 1.
• T. T. Hamilton Papers. Randall Library Special Collections Repository. Collection Identifier: SC-MS-090. William Madison Randall Library. University of North Carolina Wilmington. Wilmington, N. C. https://archivesspace.uncw.edu/repositories/5/resources/508
• “T. T. Hamilton Renamed Member of Commission on Higher Education.” Wilmington Sunday Star-News. December 7, 1947. P. 13B.

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