Elizabeth Hamilton

Elizabeth Hamilton (1756 or 1758 – 23 July 1816) was a Scottish essayist, poet, satirist and novelist, who in both her prose and fiction entered into the French-revolutionary era controversy in Britain over the education and rights of women. Early life She was most probably born on 25 July 1756, though the date is often given as 1758. She was born in Belfast, the third and youngest child of Charles Hamilton (d.1759), a Scottish merchant, and his wife Katherine Mackay (d.1767). In Belfast Hamilton's parents were on familiar terms with the town's prominent "New Light" Presbyterian families and with their Scottish Enlightenment social and political ideas. Her later thoughts on child education were greatly influenced by David Manson's co-educational English Grammar School, which her older sister Katherine attended with other children from this progressive milieu. Manson advertised the school's capacity to teach children to read and understand the English tongue "without the discipline of the rod by intermingling pleasurable and healthful exercise with their instruction". In 1762, after the death of her father, her mother sent Hamilton to live with her paternal aunt, Mrs Marshall who lived near Stirling. In 1772, she lived at Ingram's Crook near Bannockburn.