Elizabeth Hamilton
Elizabeth Hamilton was a British novelist, essayist, and social reformer born around 1756 in Belfast, Ireland. She faced early hardships with the loss of her parents and moved to Scotland, where she enjoyed a prosperous upbringing with her relatives. Hamilton began her literary journey in childhood, producing journals and letters, and later published her first essay in 1785. Throughout her life, she wrote multiple novels and essays, advocating for social issues such as childhood education and the role of women in society.
Her most notable work, *Memoirs of Modern Philosophers*, critiques radical feminist ideas while promoting intellectual self-determination for women within traditional gender roles. Despite her complex views on feminism, Hamilton sought to balance progressive thought with respect for societal norms. Later in life, she dedicated herself to charitable causes and education, working with impoverished women and the children of nobility. Hamilton's health declined in her later years, and she passed away in Harrogate, England, in 1816 while seeking treatment for her ailments. Her contributions remain significant in discussions about women's roles in literature and society during her time.
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Elizabeth Hamilton
Writer
- Born: Probably July 25, 1756
- Birthplace: Belfast, Ireland (now in Northern Ireland)
- Died: July 23, 1816
- Place of death: Harrogate, Yorkshire, England
Biography
British novelist, essayist, and social reformer Elizabeth Hamilton was born in Belfast, Ireland (now Northern Ireland), the daughter of a Scottish merchant and the sister of a Belfast minister. The exact date of her birth is contested but she most likely was born in 1756. Her parents had three children, and when typhus claimed her father in 1759, Hamilton was sent to live with her father’s sister. Her mother died three years later and Hamilton moved to Scotland with her aunt and uncle, with whom her childhood was idyllic and prosperous. She attended the Stirling Day School for five years and was gregarious and popular. Hamilton read widely, including highly intellectual books that her aunt considered inappropriate and unfeminine.
Hamilton began writing as a child, primarily producing journals and letters to her brother and sister, whom she rarely saw. She also drafted an unpublished novel about Lady Arabella Stewart. Her aunt died in 1780, and Hamilton became her uncle’s housekeeper, but as she grew older the isolation of highland life bored her. In 1785, she published an essay in the Edinburgh magazine The Lounger, and in 1786 she lived in London for several months with her brother, Charles, who had returned for five years from his post in India to work on a translation of the Muslim legal code. Her uncle died in 1788, and Hamilton went to live in London with her sister and brother. When her brother died of tuberculosis unexpectedly in 1791, shortly before returning to India, Hamilton dealt with her grief by writing her first novel, the Indian theme of which was a tribute to Charles.
After Charles’s death, Hamilton lived with her widowed sister, Katherine, and traveled extensively around southern England. In 1800, she and her sister moved to Bath. Hamilton wrote continually, publishing several more novels, as well as essays on evangelical religion and the importance of early childhood education. Her novel, Memoirs of Modern Philosophers (1800), harshly satirizes the radical circle of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, but it is nonetheless progressive in its depiction of women and social responsibility. Hamilton published the first edition of the work anonymously. Despite her distaste for the radical feminism of Wollstonecraft, Hamilton’s sought a middle ground that respected traditional gender roles but allowed women to have a fair amount of intellectual self-determination.
In 1804, Hamilton and her sister, Katherine, returned to Scotland. Here, she worked for cultural and charitable causes in Edinburgh, including a school for indigent women, and befriended writers Sir Walter Scott and Maria Edgeworth. In 1805, she became the educational supervisor for the children of Lord Lucan, an experience which further influenced her ideas on education and inspired the book Letters Addressed to the Daughter of a Nobleman, on the Formation of the Religious and the Moral Principle, a modest feminist treatise written from a Christian evangelical perspective.
Hamilton spent her last years in ill health, suffering from gout and a severe eye disease. The sisters moved back and forth between England and Scotland beginning in 1912, hoping the warmer climate would improve her health. Hamilton died in Harrogate, Yorkshire, England, in July, 1816, while pursuing medical treatment for her eyes.