 The town owes its name to solicitor and politician Lancel Victor de Hamel (1849–1894), the former owner of the land where the town is situated.Over the period 1890-1894, de Hamel was the MLA for Albany and Western Australia's first Opposition Leader (facing John Forrest, Bunbury MLA and later member of Federal Parliament), who also had a hand in the creation of Albany's local newspaper in 1888, the "Albany Advertiser", which exists to this day.He died while visiting Coolgardie on 26 November 1894.