Herb Hamilton was an alumnus, Director of Alumni Affairs, and editor for almost 40 years of the Queen's Alumni Review magazine.
Herb was educated at Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute and then attended Queen's, where he earned a BA in 1932.
He then became a reporter at the Kingston Whig-Standard (1932-1936) before joining Queen's as Assistant Editor of the Alumni Review magazine (1936-1939), then called the Queen's Review. From there, he became Editor of the Alumni Review and Secretary-Treasurer of the Alumni Association (1939-1974), and then Director of the Alumni Office (1970-1974), now the Department of Alumni Relations.
Herb also held posts on innumerable Queen's committees and, after his retirement in 1976, he became a member of the Board of Trustees. He was also well known for his popular anecdotal history of the University between the 1930s and the 1970s, Queen's! Queen's! Queen's! (see Books about Queen's).
His long years of devoted service and warm sense of humour made him a revered figure at the University. He received an honorary degree from Queen's in 1975; his citation read: "He has been and is the one and only 'Herb,' the unique incarnation of the Queen's spirit."
Queen's! Queen's! Queen's!
This anecdotal history containing the personal reminiscences of Herb Hamilton covers the years between the early 1930s and the mid-1970s, and gives the reader a vivid picture of student life in this period. It describes where students lived and ate, how they dressed and entertained themselves, the fads that they followed, their pranks and protests, and their steadily increasing affluence and freedom.
The book also contains profiles of all Queen's principals from 1929 to 1977, as well as memorable campus characters such as William McNeill, Alfie Pierce, William "Dollar Bill" Allen, and Frank Tindall.
It was first published in 1977.