Film Director. Educated at Rossall School in Lancashire and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, he began his career in pictures as a clapper boy, becoming an editor on such films as "The Vessel of Wrath" and "Jamaica Inn”, both of which featured Charles Laughton, and the latter of which was written by Dame Daphne du Maurier and directed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock. His first work as a director was in the portmanteau film “Dead of Night” (1945), in which he was responsible for the sequence known as “The Haunted Mirror”, with Googie Withers. Over the next fifteen years, he directed about a dozen films, notably “Pink String and Sealing Wax” and “It Always Rains on Sunday”, both with Miss Withers, although he is best-remembered for four films with Sir Alec Guinness: “Kind Hearts and Coronets”; “Father Brown” (based on a story by G.K. Chesterton); “To Paris With Love”; and “The Scapegoat” (written, again, by Dame Daphne). In 1935, he married Joan Holt, sister of the director Seth Holt. They divorced in the 1950s, following which Hamer lived with Pamela Wilcox, the daughter of Herbert Wilcox. Unfortunately, both Hamer and Miss Wilcox suffered from alcoholism, and it was this which, in 1960, caused him to be fired half-way through the production of “School for Scoundrels”, following his collapse on the set. He never worked again and, three years later, he died of pneumonia, at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London.
Film Director. Educated at Rossall School in Lancashire and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, he began his career in pictures as a clapper boy, becoming an editor on such films as "The Vessel of Wrath" and "Jamaica Inn”, both of which featured Charles Laughton, and the latter of which was written by Dame Daphne du Maurier and directed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock. His first work as a director was in the portmanteau film “Dead of Night” (1945), in which he was responsible for the sequence known as “The Haunted Mirror”, with Googie Withers. Over the next fifteen years, he directed about a dozen films, notably “Pink String and Sealing Wax” and “It Always Rains on Sunday”, both with Miss Withers, although he is best-remembered for four films with Sir Alec Guinness: “Kind Hearts and Coronets”; “Father Brown” (based on a story by G.K. Chesterton); “To Paris With Love”; and “The Scapegoat” (written, again, by Dame Daphne). In 1935, he married Joan Holt, sister of the director Seth Holt. They divorced in the 1950s, following which Hamer lived with Pamela Wilcox, the daughter of Herbert Wilcox. Unfortunately, both Hamer and Miss Wilcox suffered from alcoholism, and it was this which, in 1960, caused him to be fired half-way through the production of “School for Scoundrels”, following his collapse on the set. He never worked again and, three years later, he died of pneumonia, at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London.
Bio by: Iain MacFarlaine
Inscription
East:
In loving memory of
Robert James Hamer
Born 31st. March 1911
Died 4th. December 1963
South:
Also
Barbara Hamer
31st. March 1911
to
26th. December 1994
of Greenfield
West:
Also of
Owen Dyke Hamer
-- February 1861
to
22nd. August 1976
North:
Also of
Annie Grace
dear wife of
Owen Dyke Hamer
23rd. September 1880
to
2nd. February 1965
Family Members
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