Elizabeth Hamilton

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In her own day EH was best known and loved for My Ain Fireside (a song expressive of national Scottish feeling and the glorification of the domestic) and for Cottagers of Glenburnie, 1808, a novel of domestic improvement. In later generations her satire on the Jacobins has got her type-cast as an unmitigated conservative. In fact her writings in many genres (poems, novels, essays, biography, and writings on education, religion, and philosophy) combine a scholarly and an ironic bent, and her conservatism includes a strong streak of feminism. Her novels make less use than most of the marriage plot, and she presents single women as strong and admirable.
Portrait of Elizabeth Hamilton by Sir Henry Raeburn. The dark but vivid painting suits her olive skin and curly, dark (unpowdered) hair. She is wearing red velvet with a matching kerchief on her head, and holding some small object in her hands.

Milestones

Probably 21 July 1756
EH was born in Belfast, Ireland, the youngest of her family.
Many sources give 1758. Scholar Pam Perkins , having inclined to this date when editing Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah in 1999, has later opted for 1756.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Hamilton, Elizabeth. “Introduction”. Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah, edited by Pamela Perkins and Shannon Russell, Broadview, 1999, pp. 7 - 50.
49
Feminist Companion Archive.
By May 1800
EH published, at Bath as well as London, her second novel, Memoirs of Modern Philosophers.
Her habit of publishing at Bath probably derives from her friendship with the Gregorys.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
n. ser. 29: 311
British Library Catalogue.
By April 1815
EH published a work on education: Hints Addressed to the Patrons and Directors of Schools.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
5th ser. 1 (1815): 535
British Library Catalogue.
Hamilton, Elizabeth. “Introduction”. Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah, edited by Pamela Perkins and Shannon Russell, Broadview, 1999, pp. 7 - 50.
50
23 July 1816
EH died at Harrogate in Yorkshire.
Hamilton, Elizabeth. “Introduction”. Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah, edited by Pamela Perkins and Shannon Russell, Broadview, 1999, pp. 7 - 50.
50

Biography

Birth

Probably 21 July 1756
EH was born in Belfast, Ireland, the youngest of her family.
Many sources give 1758. Scholar Pam Perkins , having inclined to this date when editing Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah in 1999, has later opted for 1756.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Hamilton, Elizabeth. “Introduction”. Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah, edited by Pamela Perkins and Shannon Russell, Broadview, 1999, pp. 7 - 50.
49
Feminist Companion Archive.

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