Death
He returned to London from Africa on 29 Jan 2000. He was admitted to University College Hospital London on 30 Jan 2000. He was transferred to Middlesex Hospital London on 5 Feb 2000 and died there on 7 Mar 2000. An inquest was held on 10 May 2000 at Westminster Coroner's Court to inquire into rumours about the cause of his death. The coroner concluded that his death was due to "Multi-organ failure due to upper gastrointestinal haemorrhage due to a duodenal diverticulum and arterial bleed through a mucosal ulcer".
A secular memorial service (he was an atheist) was held at the Chapel of New College, Oxford on Saturday 1 July 2000, organised by Richard Dawkins. He was buried near Wytham Woods. He, however, had written an essay on My intended burial and why in which he wrote:
| “ | I will leave a sum in my last will for my body to be carried to Brazil and to these forests. It will be laid out in a manner secure against the possums and the vultures just as we make our chickens secure; and this great Coprophanaeus beetle will bury me. They will enter, will bury, will live on my flesh; and in the shape of their children and mine, I will escape death. No worm for me nor sordid fly, I will buzz in the dusk like a huge bumble bee. I will be many, buzz even as a swarm of motorbikes, be borne, body by flying body out into the Brazilian wilderness beneath the stars, lofted under those beautiful and un-fused elytra which we will all hold over our backs. So finally I too will shine like a violet ground beetle under a stone. | ” |
The second volume of his collected papers, Evolution of Sex, was published in 2002, and the third and final volume, Last Words, in 2005.
Read more about this topic: W. D. Hamilton
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