Henrietta Hamilton

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox artist | name = Henrietta Martha, Lady Hamilton | image = Lady Henrietta Martha Hamilton.jpg | imagesize = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date text|1780}} | birth_place = Stanmore, United Kingdom | death_date = {{Death year and age|1857|1780}} | death_place = London, United Kingdom | education = | field = Painting | training = | movement = | works = | patrons = | awards = | spouse = Charles Hamilton | partner = }}

thumb|Demasduit (Mary March), 1819 Library and Archives Canada '''Henrietta Martha, Lady Hamilton''' (1780–1857) was born in Stanmore, Middlesex, England,<ref name="concordia">{{Cite web|url=http://cwahi.concordia.ca/sources/artists/displayArtist.php?ID_artist=126|title=Canadian Women Artists History Initiative : Artist Database : Artists : HAMILTON, Lady Henrietta|website=cwahi.concordia.ca|language=en|access-date=2017-03-30}}</ref> and was the wife of Sir Charles Hamilton, Governor of Newfoundland. She is best known for her miniature portrait entitled Mary March. The painting is a watercolour on ivory of a Beothuk Indigenous woman Demasduit, and is considered by many to be the only representation of a Beothuk taken from life.<ref name="concordia"/> It was painted in 1819 at St. John's where she lived with her husband during his term as governor from 1818 to 1824.

In the fall of 1818, a small group of Beothuks had taken a boat and some fishing equipment at the mouth of the Exploits River. Lady Hamilton's husband, Governor Hamilton, had authorized an attempt to recover the stolen property. On March 1, 1819, John Peyton Jr. and eight armed men went up the Exploits River to Red Indian Lake in search of the Beothuks and their equipment. A dozen Beothuk fled the campsite, Demasduit among them. Bogged down in the snow, she exposed her breasts, as she was a nursing mother, and begged for mercy. Demasduit was captured; Nonosabasut, her husband and the leader of the group, was killed while attempting to prevent her capture. Her infant son died a few days after she was taken. Demasduit was called Mary March because she was captured on a bitter March day.<ref>Charlotte Gray 'The Museum Called Canada: 25 Rooms of Wonder' Random House, 2004</ref> Peyton and his men were absolved of the murder of her husband by a grand jury in St. John's. The painting resides in the Portrait Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}

Lady Hamilton painted mostly in watercolors. Her other well-known work is "Woodlands Cottage".<ref name="concordia"/>

Hamilton and her husband returned to England after his posting. She was widowed in 1849 and died in London in 1857.<ref name="concordia"/>

==References== <references />

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Henrietta}} Category:1780 births Category:1857 deaths Category:19th-century English painters Category:Artists from Newfoundland and Labrador Category:English portrait miniaturists Category:Wives of baronets Category:19th-century English women painters