Editing W. D. Hamilton (section)

==Early life==
Hamilton was born in 1936 in [[Cairo]], [[Egypt]], the second of seven children.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=2025-03-02 |title=Bettina Matraves Collier |url=https://www.earlymedwomen.auckland.ac.nz/2025/03/02/bettina-matraves-collier/ |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=The Early Medical Women of New Zealand |language=en-NZ}}</ref> His parents were from [[New Zealand]]; his father [[A.M. Hamilton]] was an engineer, and his mother Bettina Matraves Hamilton (nee Collier) was a [[physician]].<ref name=":0" /> Two sisters qualified in medicine: Mary Bliss, who developed the alternating pressure mattress for the prevention of bedsores, and Janet who became a general practitioner. Another sister Margaret became a pasture scientist and brother an engineer.<ref name=":0" />

The Hamilton family settled in [[Kent]]. During the [[Second World War]], Hamilton was evacuated to [[Edinburgh]]. He became interested in natural history at an early age and spent his spare time collecting [[butterflies]] and other insects. In 1946, he discovered [[E.B. Ford]]'s [[New Naturalist]] book ''Butterflies'', which introduced him to the principles of evolution by [[natural selection]], [[genetics]], and [[population genetics]].

He was educated at [[Tonbridge School]], where he was in Smythe House. As a 12-year-old, he was seriously injured while playing with [[explosives]] his father had that were left over from making [[hand grenade]]s for the [[British Home Guard|Home Guard]] during [[World War II]]. Hamilton had to have a [[thoracotomy]] and parts of fingers on his right hand had to be amputated in [[King's College Hospital]] to save his life. He was left with scarring and needed six months to recover.<ref name=":0" />

Before going up to the [[University of Cambridge]], he travelled in France and completed two years of [[national service]]. As an [[undergraduate]] at [[St. John's College, Cambridge|St. John's College]] in Biology, he was uninspired by the "many biologists [who] hardly seemed to believe in evolution".