Betsey Trotwood is a fictional character from Charles Dickens' 1850 novel David Copperfield.

Betsey Trotwood is David Copperfield's great-aunt on his father's side, and has an unfavourable view of men and boys, having been ill-used and abandoned by a worthless husband earlier in life.

She appears in the novel's first chapter, where she demonstrates her uncommon personality and her dislike of boys when she storms out of the house after hearing that David's mother has had a son, rather than the daughter to whom Trotwood intended to be the godmother.

She provides him with a place at a good school in Canterbury and opportunities for a career in Doctors' Commons, thus showing her complex character.

[1][citation needed] The character is based on Miss Mary Pearson Strong who lived at Broadstairs, Kent, and who died on 14 January 1855; she is buried in the St. Peter's-in-Thanet churchyard.