Lady Mary Hamilton

Lady Mary Leslie was the youngest daughter of Alexander Leslie, 5th Earl of Leven and Melville, and Lady Elizabeth Monypenny Leslie. In 1762 she married Dr. James Walker of Innerdovat, physician to the prison hospital in Edinburgh. She had ten children, several of whom died in infancy. In 1782 she met and became romantically involved with George Robinson Hamilton, a cousin of the Duke of Hamilton, and removed to France with him and two of her daughters. Lady Mary Hamilton, as she styled herself, was best known for her novel Munster Village (1778), a utopian work depicting a community of women pursuing higher education, but she also published Letters from the Duchess de Crony (1777); The Life of Mrs. Justman (1782); and The Duc de Popoli (1810). After George Robinson Hamilton's death in 1797, she moved to Amiens, where Sir Herbert Croft became a member of her household. She died there early in 1816.