Born: 25 July 1756, United Kingdom
Died: 23 July 1816
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: NA
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Sinéad Sturgeon. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Hamilton, Elizabeth (1758–1816), writer, was born 25 July 1758 in Belfast, the youngest child of Charles Hamilton, a merchant from an old Scottish family, the Hamiltons of Woodhall, and his wife Katherine (Mackay) Hamilton (d. 1767) of Dublin. She had one sister, Katharine, and one brother, Charles (d. 1792). In 1759 the elder Charles Hamilton died from typhus, leaving his family in straitened circumstances, and to alleviate the burden on her mother Elizabeth was sent to live with her paternal aunt, Mrs Marshall, and her husband, a farmer in Stirlingshire. She enjoyed a happy and active childhood in Scotland; educated locally in Stirling, she was a voracious reader from an early age. In 1772 she was reunited with her brother Charles, who visited her before taking up his cadetship with the East India Company. Later that year she moved with the Marshalls to Ingram’s Crook, near Bannockburn. She was devoted to her brother and they maintained regular contact while he was in India. In 1778 she returned for six months to Ireland, where she established an equally close relationship with her sister Katharine.
Elizabeth returned to Ingram’s Crook where, after the death of her aunt in 1780, she became the sole carer of her beloved uncle. Though she was occasionally frustrated by rural isolation, she declined an offer to visit Charles in India, emphatically rebuffing the marital prospecting such expeditions usually entailed. Having begun to write while in her teens (her earliest literary efforts include an unpublished novel on Lady Arabella Stuart, poems, and a journal of a Highland tour, the latter published at her aunt’s instigation in a provincial paper), she pursued her interest in literature, publishing an essay in the Lounger (no. 46, 1785). In 1786 Charles, who had been awarded a five-year leave to translate the Heddaya (the Muslim code of laws), returned to Britain and, after visiting his sisters, settled in London. Elizabeth visited him there in 1788, a stimulating experience socially as well as intellectually, and after the death of her uncle in 1790 she joined her siblings in the city.
This domestic happiness proved short-lived, and Elizabeth was devastated when Charles died suddenly from tuberculosis in 1792. She and her sister, by now a widow, left London and lived for a time in Hadleigh, Suffolk, and Sonning in Berkshire. The memory of Charles inspired Elizabeth’s first major literary success, Translations of the letters of a Hindoo rajah (1796), a cleverly conceived satire in which a rajah, intrigued by reports of a modern, progressive British society, visits the country for himself and records his observations, including disparaging comments on female education and atheism. The work demonstrates the extensive orientalist knowledge Hamilton had learned from her brother and commemorates him in the character of Captain Percy, while a less flattering self-portrait appears in his sister Charlotte Percy, a young woman languishing in self-pity after the deaths of her uncle and brother until induced to put her talents to some productive, public use. Hamilton’s next novel, Memoirs of modern philosophers (1800), was very successful, lampooning the new generation of radical thinkers, most notably Mary Hays and William Godwin, but praising Mary Wollstonecraft’s ideas on female education. The education of women was one of her major interests, possibly because of the constraints she had experienced in her own youth; she recalled that as a child she hid ‘Kaimes’s Elements of Criticism under the cover of an easy chair, whenever I heard the approach of a footstep, well knowing the ridicule to which I should have been exposed, had I been detected in the act of looking into such a book!’ (Benger, 203).
Around 1800 Hamilton suffered an attack of gout, the first of many such episodes, and she moved to Bath to recuperate. She continued to write, publishing Letters on education (1801), the first of a series of works on education, and Memoirs of the life of Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus (1804), before settling with her sister on a government pension in Edinburgh, where they would remain for the next decade. She agreed to supervise for six months the education of a Scottish nobleman’s motherless children, refusing to stay longer because the nature of such employment would inevitably limit her independence. She became very attached to the children, however, and dedicated to them the treatise she subsequently based on this experience, Letters addressed to the daughter of a nobleman (1806). In Edinburgh she became something of a celebrity, opening her home for regular literary salons and forming friendships with Joanna Baillie, Walter Scott, and Maria Edgeworth. Her best-loved lyric, ‘My ain fireside’, was written about this time, and in 1808 she achieved her greatest popular success with her novel The cottagers of Glenburnie, a didactic narrative aimed to reform the lifestyle of the Scottish peasantry, praised by Scott in the postscript to Waverley. Hamilton was active in various charitable projects, and in 1809 she published Exercises in religious knowledge (1809), inspired by her work with the Female House of Refuge in Edinburgh.
In 1812 Hamilton was again seriously ill, and spent a winter in England recuperating. In June of the following year she travelled to Dublin, where she met the city’s literati, commenting that she met everywhere ‘with the best and most agreeable society, splendid entertainment, and that cordiality of reception which gives a zest to all’ (Benger, 190). During her three-month tour of Ireland she visited Edgeworthstown, remarking that Richard Lovell Edgeworth, when at home, ‘appears in far more favourable colours than in mixed society’, and that the whole family ‘seem united to each other in bonds of the most perfect sympathy’ (Benger, 214). In this year she also continued her series of works on education, publishing A series of popular essays (1813), intended to make ‘the science of the mind’ accessible, and Hints addressed to the patrons and directors of public schools (1815), which recommended the theories of the Swiss educational reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi.
Hamilton’s last years were increasingly troubled by gout and failing eyesight. In an attempt to improve her health she moved in May 1816 to Harrogate, England, where she died, unmarried, 23 July 1816. A respected and widely read writer in her time, her theories on education (particularly equality of curriculum for both sexes and the education of the poor) were highly influential. She was praised by Edgeworth for her tireless work in promoting the education of women: ‘She has shown how they may, by slow and certain steps, advance to a useful object. The dark, intricate, and dangerous labyrinth, she has converted into a clear, straight, practicable road’ (Times, 5 Oct. 1816).
The following is excerpted from Woman: Her Position, Influence and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Designed and Arranged by William C. King. Published in 1900 by The King-Richardson Co. Copyright 1903 The King-Richardson Co.
She was the daughter of Charles Hamilton, a Scottish merchant who had moved to Belfast , and Katherine Mackay who, was the sister of the minister of Belfast ‘s first dissenting congregation.
Her father died in 1759, leaving his widow with three children. Finding herself unable to care for all her children, Katherine sent them to be raised and educated by relatives. In 1762, Elizabeth was sent to be raised by her paternal aunt, a Mrs. Marshall, who lived in Stirlingshire , Scotland , with her husband, a prosperous farmer. It appears from her own writings that Elizabeth had an idyllic childhood during which she both read widely in Scottish history and literature and enjoyed active outdoor play. She attended a day school at Stirling between the ages of eight and thirteen, a form of education that she later advocated.
Elizabeth was also an intellectually active girl. She had a taste for good literature and was widely read. Wallace was the first hero of her studies; but meeting with Oglivie’s translation of the Iliad, she idolized Achilles and dreamed of Hector. Her aunt disapproved of her literary interests, afraid that Elizabeth would be viewed unfeminine if she was seen reading such material. She was also given to writing poetry.
In 1788, Elizabeth went to live with her brother Captain Charles Hamilton, who was engaged on his translation of the “Hedaya”, the Muslim code of laws. After the death of her brother Charles in 1792, the literary career of Elizabeth Hamilton commenced. Her first work was “The Letters of a Hindu Rajah”, in tribute to life of her brother, published in 1796. The success of this work decided her to pursue the vocation of a writer.
Elizabeth Hamilton spent the years following her brother’s death traveling around southern England with her widowed sister Katherine, with whom she lived for most of the rest of her life. It was not until 1804 that she returned permanently to Scotland, settling in Edinburgh, where she became an active participant in the cultural life of the city.
She wrote successively, “Memoirs of Modern Philosophers”,”Letters on Education”, “Life of Agrippina”, and “Letters to the Daughters of Noblemen.” This last book was published in the year 1806. Soon afterwards, Miss Hamilton became an active promoter of the “House of Industry” at Edinburgh, an establishment for the education of females of the lowest class. For the benefit of these young women, Elizabeth wrote the little book, “Exercises in Religious Knowledge”, which was published in 1809.
Elizabeth Hamilton has shown in all her works great power of analysis, a firm grasp of philosophy, and singular proficiency as an expositor of educational theory. More importantly, her work was a great influence on mothers of her time, encouraging them to be careful what they allow into the minds of their children.
She left Edinburgh for Harrogate in May of 1816, hoping to recover from the effects of a particularly bad winter, but she died there on 23 July, 1816 at the age of 58.