[or Harriet]. English authoress, and wife of the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava; born in 1843 at Killyleagh Castle, County Down, Ireland, her father being Captain Archibald Rowan Hamilton. She married Lord Dufferin in 1862, and contributed largely to her husband’s popularity while he filled the posts of Governor-General of Canada and India, and served the crown on his various embassies at St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Rome and Paris. In Canada, during his administration, in the years 1872–78, Lady Dufferin took a hearty interest in woman’s educational work, and by her social graces and inimitable tact she endeared herself to all. In India she devoted herself with rare enthusiasm to philanthropic work among the native women, an account of which she published in 1889 in A Record of Three Years’ Work, and in Our Viceregal Life in India, which appeared in the following year. In 1891 she published My Canadian Journal, an interesting narrative of viceregal journeys through various portions of the Canadian Dominion, with some acute chapters on the social life as well as the physical beauties of the country.
