The result is the Briton’s 46th career pole, the third most number of pole positions won by any driver in Formula One and behind only Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna.
Momentum looked to be with Rosberg during Friday, but Hamilton seized it back during Saturday morning practice and dominated from there, holding a slender buffer to his teammate throughout qualifying.
Hamilton took provisional pole from Rosberg after their first runs by a tenth of a second with a 1 minute 32.248 seconds, and neither driver was able to improve their laps over the second runs.
Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff blamed the lack of improvement on the blustery conditions at Silverstone, while Nico Rosberg pointed specifically to a problem with his front left tyre, which he said provided no grip on his final lap.
“The first lap was really good, there's not much to say about that,” said Rosberg. “Lewis was just one tenth quicker — which is annoying but that just the way it is.
“On the last run something strange happened, and not many people improved.
Something was wrong with my left front, something was very wrong, and we'll have to look at what that was.”
Hamilton, on the other hand, paid tribute to the British fans, attending Silverstone in record numbers this year, for their support.
“It's a special day,” he said. “It's special when you get pole position here on your home turf. So many people came today and on this weekend, and they really do motivate me this weekend.
“Generally it's not been the smoothest of weekends, It's been a bit up and down, so going into qualifying I made a change to the car that was perhaps not great for a qualifying lap but should be good for the race.”
Felipe Massa completed the top three by outqualifying teammate Valtteri Bottas and, most importantly, outqualifying both Ferraris.
“It was a fantastic day for us,” said the Brazilian. “It's also a home grand prix for the team, so it's great to see me and Valtteri in third and fourth.
“I’m really looking forward to tomorrow having strong race, especially the fight with Ferrari. Today was an important day for us to see we can be in front of Ferrari.
“I’m very happy with what we did today, now we just have to concentrate on tomorrow.”
Both Ferraris qualified in fifth and sixth, with Kimi Räikkönen leading Sebastian Vettel despite a scare in Q2 after his lap time was deleted for exceeding track limits on one of his quick laps.
Daniil Kvyat qualified seventh, but would have been outqualified by teammate Daniel Ricciardo were his fastest time not also deleted for driving outside the track lines at turn nine.
Ricciardo’s previous logged time was good enough only for tenth, behind Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz and Force India’s Nico Hülkenberg.
Qualifying was seen by a phenomenal 110,000-strong crowd at Silverstone, but any British fans not cheering for Hamilton had little else to get excited about without any other Brit making the top ten.
Jenson Button’s McLaren-Honda lapped embarrassingly slow and qualified eighteenth — slowest of all bar the two Manor cars, one of which was being driven by Will Stevens, the grid’s newest English debutant.