Robert Hamilton (1920-2003) studied Modern History and then Anthropology at Oxford. He held a lectureship at the School of Oriental and African Studies for ten years and in 1959 moved to Makerere University in Uganda as lecturer in Modern History. From 1966 until retiring in 1983 he was lecturer in African History at the University of Bristol.

Elsi Hamilton studied Public and Social Administration at Barnett House, Oxford, and Mental Health at the London School of Economics. She worked as a psychiatric social worker at the Child Guidance Clinic in Oxford from 1949 to 1950. At Makerere she was secretary of the university's Medical Officer and taught in Child Development. On returning to England she was a social worker in the Child Psychiatry Department of Bristol Children's Hospital and taught for the Open University.

The Hamiltons spent a year from 1950 to 1951 living in Chadza's village in central Nyasaland and learning the language of Ch-Nyanza, while Robert researched oral traditions in African history.