Dr. William Godfrey Hamilton

william hamilton

July 5, 1943 ~ November 23, 2022

Born in: Bristol, England
Resided in: Fairview, NC

Dr. Will Hamilton, 79, passed away peacefully on November 23, 2022, in Asheville, North Carolina surrounded by family and loved ones. He was a pillar of the Asheville and Fairview communities, doctor to many families from birth through death, who shared his broad range of interests from theology and spirituality to stargazing, birding and hiking, and especially art and music with his family and many friends. He always had an open heart, genuine interest in people, and a twinkle in his eye. 

The oldest of four children, “Dr. Will” was born in Bristol, England, on July 5, 1943. He was educated at Pinewood near Swindon, and Charter House, Godalming, Surrey. He graduated from Royal London Hospital Medical School, where part of his training involved biking around the East End of London and learning natural birthing methods under the tutelage of midwives. While visiting L’Abri, an intentional Christian community in Switzerland, he looked across a crowded room and saw a cute blonde American girl, Susie Skinner Clarke. The two reconnected in London, married, and started a family in a home where they provided shelter and space for individuals in need of help and healing in London. Their first two children, Annie Louise and William, were born there.

In 1976, they moved to Western North Carolina to be closer to Susie’s family in Fairview. After graduating from the inaugural class of the MAHEC residency program, Dr. Will was recruited to run a small hospital in Bat Cave called the Valley Clinic, where he integrated natural birthing into conventional medical practice. His third child Elizabeth was born in Bat Cave. He later ran a medical practice out of his log cabin home in Fairview. Elspeth, the fourth, was born there during a snowstorm. His youngest David was born in Fletcher. Will practiced medicine for many years at an office in the heart of Fairview and eventually co-founded Parkway Family Physicians with Dr. John Wander, and Dr. Robert Barker. 

Will and Susie lived with openness and generosity, embodying a ministry of hospitality and Christian love through hosting a wide variety of international students and many who needed a warm bed and family. Their home became a place to stop by for a hot meal, fresh bread, or a cup of tea. Or a place to get a few stitches, an ear examined, or helpful medical advice. Many of his patients came to the house, with gifts of potatoes, moonshine, boxes of meat, cakes, pies, even bee hives. 

Dr. Will thrived during his retirement years. Initially, he devoted himself to caring for his wife Susie as she progressively declined from frontotemporal dementia. All the while he was an active part of a men’s hiking group, a ping pong club, a ukulele group as well as a bluegrass band. Not to mention the art and writing groups. He was a follower of Saint Francis and was received into the Franciscan Third Order in 2021. 

In November of 2021 Will met Martha (Mattie) Miller Decker at a “Friendsgiving Dinner” on Bearwallow Mountain. Over the past year they have shared life and many connections with Will’s family and their church family at the Church of the Transfiguration in Bat Cave. Just recently, they spent two weeks on a Pilgrimage, “Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul” on the Isle of Iona in the Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland, led by John Philip Newell. 

Will’s children acknowledge that he has spent his lifetime seeking God and building a sense of community in churches, hospitals, and neighborhood gatherings.

Will is survived by his children, Annie Louise Perkinson and husband Isaiah, Elizabeth Bahnson and husband Fred, Elspeth Mann and husband Gabriel, David Hamilton and wife Hayley, and daughter-in-law Molly Hamilton; grandchildren Sidney and Ivy Perkinson, Anne, Evva, Hythe, and Steven Hamilton, Carsten, Elijah, and David Bahnson, and Jedidiah and Florence Mann; as well as his brother Alan and his wife Naomi, sisters Christine and Anthea, and many beloved nieces and nephews as well as a whole community who feel close to the family.

His wife Susie and son William preceded him in death. 

We will celebrate his life December 17th at 11am at the First Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina with a reception to follow. 

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to either: 

William RM Hamilton Scholarship Fund, a scholarship supporting local college students studying natural resources. 

Donations can be made via check mailed to:

BCS Foundation
175 Bingham Road
Asheville, NC 28806

Or made online:

https://foundation.buncombeschools.org/o/foundation/page/support

Click on yellow Donate button and enter the scholarship name in the description box.

OR 

Susie and Will Hamilton Fund for Art, Music and Outdoor Education at Fairview Elementary. Checks should be made out to “FES-PTA” with “Susie and Will Hamilton” as memo. Mail checks to

Fairview Elementary School PTA 
1355 Charlotte Highway 
Fairview NC 28730

Or follow this link to use PayPal:

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/FESPTA828?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

Groce Funeral Home on Tunnel Road is assisting the family.

Services

Celebration of Life: December 17, 2022 11:00 am

First Baptist Church of Asheville
5 Oak Street
Asheville, NC 28801

(828)252-4781

Funeral Home Assisting The Family:

Groce Funeral Home on Tunnel Road
856 Tunnel Rd.
Asheville, NC 28805

(828)299-4416
http://www.grocefuneralhome.com

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Memories Timeline

Guestbook

  1. Dr. Hamilton….. greatest doc, so many years! Thoughts are with your family and friends. So long my friend.

  2. To the family and friends, Dr. Hamilton gave my daddy so much peace in all the years of being his dr..He will greatly missed, but such a warm blessing in heaven..Family you will always be in my prayers and if you will always let Jesus walk with you, he will never fail you…

  3. Dr Hamilton was my doctor beginning at Valley Clinic in Bat Cave NC through his practice at Parkway Family. He was a Dr. who never stoped learning and embraced his practice with an open mind . He place his patients first even when it meant disagreeing with another college . I am sad that he is gone but i can not help but know we shall meet in that special place which is prepared for thoes who BELIEVE . Gods grace uphold you. May His light of love embrace you . Especially at this time . Harold & Lucille Conner

  4. I first met Will just this past May through my longtime friend Mattie… and got to spend what turned out to be one of the most special adventures I’ve had in years… friends, music, ping pong…Through Mattie and Will I got to meet and spend some brief time with you, David, met met your wife and one sister… but I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so “at home” in your lovely home as I did on that trip. I thank you ALL for that and am so thankful that I got to know Will… even for a moment. He was a genuine “Light Keeper.”

  5. unbelievable and yet true. Inevitable and yet so sad. Will was a friend of our entire family. We still had so many plans, we wanted to go to Assisi in Italy together. We are very sad and yet we know that this day had to come at some point. But so suddenly and unexpectedly? Apparently it was meant to be that way. I am grateful for the many good moments, conversations and his care, humanity and fatherliness. We’re losing a really great, wise man. Thank you Will for everything. Your friends in Germany will not forget you and what you did for us. We visit you and know that you are with us – wherever you are.

  6. A good man and good Dr.I always looked forward to a visit. We had many discussions about Biblical and theological things. I will see you when I get there. You were a blessing to me.

  7. No one has ever left it’s mark on my family like Dr. Hamilton he was a true friend, saw him last at Fairview Ballfield and actually prayed for me at Food Lion ,a pure and simple man but so forceful, he will surely be missed, fly high my friend,

  8. Thanks Will ,for your incredible friendship over many years. Horse drawn caravanning in S. Ireland, illegal fishing[!] canoeing down the Way river near your old school Charterhouse, climbing in Snowdonia Wales,in the depths of winter, being such a good listening ear, giving me such a good time in N.C., seeing you caring for your dear wife Susie in such a wonderful way. I so look forward to joining you by grace of course! Thank you again David Ursell

  9. What an interesting, talented, sweet man and we were so blessed to have him in our presence. May God bless and comfort you in the days ahead.

  10. Dear Hamilton Family, Our thoughts and prayers are with you all at this time of loss. Having Will as a colleague, and fellow christian, going through medical school at The London Hospital was a good time. I also became a GP, and for 25 years practiced community obstetrics. Living in Bristol since 1969, and attending Redland Parish Church, a few years ago I was able to locate the grave of one of your family in the churchyard, and I think sent Will a photo. May you all know God’s shalom.

  11. Dr. Hamilton was a great comfort to my grandmom in her last years. She was also born in England and really enjoyed speaking with him about growing up there. He will be missed. Prayers to his friends and family.

  12. Thank-you Will for a so valued friendship spanning 56 years I think! It was such a special quartet of yourself, Pat Baines, David Ursell and myself there in Shoreditch in the ’60s and though we have not often been able to meet in person since those days, I have always been so thankful for your wonderful encouragement and support right up to giving generously towards the Lindisfarne Gospels Pilgrimage less than a month ago. What a legacy!

  13. Dr. Hamilton was always cheerful. We enjoyed the time he donated playing in the band for the residents at Universal Healthcare in Fletcher, after he retired. Such a wonderful man

  14. Goodbye Will, I will miss you all the way over here in Germany. You were always helpful understanding and warm hearted and had a smile for everyone. I still remember many moments I shared with you while staying with you and the rest of your great family. I bet you are having a big reunion party in heaven with family and friends and with lot’s of music. And afterwards you’ll start a discussion with god about theology or astronomy or what have you. Rest in peace. Love Katharina from Germany

  15. Godspeed Dr. Will! What a wonderful man. I met you and the Fairfield clan at such an important and beautiful time of my life. I came from a place where men aren’t very healthy, and you were and remained among the few men I’ve looked up to. I wish I had made it by your place on my road trip last Spring. We’ve had so many good conversations about many subjects over the years. May the Comforter rest on Fairfield. I wish I could hug you all!

    Wayfarer,
    Your body is my prayer carpet,

    For I can see in your eyes

    That you are exquisitely woven
    With the finest silk and wool

    And that pattern on your soul
    Has the signature of God […]
    -Hafiz

  16. WE SHARE THE SAME SHOES©️ m.moon
    In Memorandum

    Imagine we are holding you, quiet-like; no words, just breathing together.

    We place a warm, cosy cover over you while we go make your favorite tea. The smell is strangely comforting even if we don’t know why smells remind us of ‘being’.

    While sipping your tea our eyes meet in ‘knowing’, not because others can’t, not that we wish they could. We know the hollow, empty hole in our hearts is nothing we would wish or give to anyone, even when we know it will come to all of us in time.

    After a while, we dress and we go outside. Sitting together, we look up to the clouds, eternally shape-shifting. Though these glory processions we understand and accept the movement of Life. A rhythm of push, pull, gain and loss, no exceptions.

    The wind whispers a sweet brush, reminding us that we ‘had them’ once. Their goofy smiles and sounds, the color of their hair, the tone of their voice. These will never be forgotten.

    It’s comforting to know sadness is acceptable, a part we all share, our intimate commonality of being human.

    As we leave, we remind you that we are here for you in all possible ways. Our community has always been ‘one’, even in the times we didn’t know it.

    But, these times, the longing ache of being left behind is one we have all tasted.

    Perhaps like the tea.

  17. I had one night with Will on the way back to our home in WI; what a loving, generous man! And guess what? My birthday is July 5, 1941, exactly two years older that Will! I felt such a wonderful kinship with him, only knowing him one evening!


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