Her father was Sir John Lindsay, a British career naval officer who was stationed there; later knighted and promoted to admiral.

[1] He was the son of Sir Alexander Lindsay, 3rd Baronet and his wife Amelia, daughter of David Murray, 5th Viscount Stormont.

Lindsay is thought to have found Dido's mother, Maria Belle, held as a slave on a Spanish ship which his forces captured in the Caribbean.

[5] Maria Belle was a 14-year-old child slave when she was captured, around the same time she got pregnant by Lindsay, and gave birth to Dido when she was about 15 years old.

Her age was confirmed by the Pensacola property record about her later life: "the manumission transaction for the sum of two hundred Spanish milled dollars paid by Maria Belle a Negro Woman Slave about 28 years of age", dated 22 August 1774; this confirmed that Maria Belle was about 14 when Dido was conceived; it is unlikely that the conception was consensual.

[8][9] Sir John Lindsay returned to London after the war in 1765 with his young daughter and Maria Belle; he presumably took Dido to Kenwood House, home of his uncle, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, and his wife.

A contemporary obituary of Sir John Lindsay, who had eventually been promoted to admiral, assumed that he was the father of Dido Belle, and described her: "[H]e has died, we believe, without any legitimate issue but has left one natural daughter, a Mulatta who has been brought up in Lord Mansfield's family almost from her infancy and whose amiable disposition and accomplishments have gained her the highest respect from all his Lordship's relations and visitants.

"[1] At one time, historians thought her mother was an African slave on a ship captured by Lindsay's warship during the Siege of Havana,[12] but this specific date is unlikely, as Dido was born in 1761.

At Kenwood House, Dido Elizabeth Belle would work in dairy and poultry yard and as an amanuensis for Lord Mansfield in his later years.

[13] One of Mansfield's friends, American Thomas Hutchinson, a former governor of Massachusetts who as a Loyalist had moved to London, recalled in his personal diary a visit to Kenwood in 1779 that Belle "was called upon by my Lord every minute for this thing and that, and showed the greatest attention to everything he said".

Sir Lindsay, having taken her mother prisoner in a Spanish vessel, brought her to England, where she delivered of this girl, of which she was then with child, and which was taken care of by Lord M., and has been educated by his family.

A Jamaica planter, being asked what judgment his Lordship would give [answered] 'No doubt ... he will be set free, for Lord Mansfield keeps a Black in his house which governs him and the whole family.

'"[13][19][20][21] The notion of a biracial child born in this era to be raised as part of an aristocratic British family was virtually unheard of,[22] and the social conventions of Mansfield's household are somewhat unclear.

A 2007 exhibit at Kenwood suggests that Dido's African origins may have played a part in the disparity, yet it was also usual to treat illegitimate children as lesser family, therefore she was not permitted to dine in with guests, as was reported by Thomas Hutchinson.

She notes that other aspects of Belle's life, such as being given expensive medical treatments and luxurious bedroom furnishings, were evidence of her position as Lady Elizabeth's equal at Kenwood.

Thomas Hutchinson also remarked on Dido's position in 1779 "She is a sort of Superintendent over the dairy, poultry yard, &c., which we visited, and she was called upon by my Lord every minute for this thing and that, and shewed the greatest attention to everything he said.

[26][5][27] For comparison, the annual wage of a female domestic worker holding the position of a housekeeper in a high-status household ranged from £20 to £70 at that time, while a lieutenant in the Royal Navy would draw about £100 a year.

Dido was apparently excluded from excursions to church, tours of Kenwood, and other family outings that were attended by Hamilton, which seems to consolidate Belle's awkward position in the household.

Belle's companion all their young lives, Elizabeth left Kenwood at the age of 25 and began her married life between her husband's two vast estates Kirby Hall and Eastwell Park.

[5] Belle's father died in 1788 without legitimate heirs, bequeathing £1,000 to be shared by his "reputed children", John and Elizabeth Lindsay (as noted in his will) and nothing for Dido.

[35] In his will written in 1783, published in 1793, Lord Mansfield officially confirmed or conferred Belle's freedom but unlike Lady Elizabeth, he did not refer to Dido as his niece.

[45][46] Belle died in 1804[42] at the age of 43, and was interred in July of that year at St George's Fields, Westminster, a burial ground close to what is now Bayswater Road.

[44][49] Presumably, both of them had enjoyed a private school education in their childhood, with tuition in English, Greek, Latin, French, accounting, land surveying, mathematics and drawing.

[53] After his (final) retirement, Charles lived with his wife, children, and servants at Lansdowne Villas in Notting Hill, where he died on 24 January 1873.

Belle's last known descendant was her great-great-grandson Harold Davinier [sic], a motor mechanic who died childless and left an estate of £250 in South Africa in 1975.

[1] It shows Dido alongside and slightly behind her cousin Elizabeth, carrying exotic fruit and wearing a turban with a large ostrich feather.

In 2007, it was exhibited in Kenwood House as part of an exposition marking the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 1807, together with more information about Belle.

[7] The painting is discussed by English Heritage in the following way: The portrait of the two women is highly unusual in 18th-century British art for showing a black woman as the equal of her white companion, rather than as a servant or slave.

[...] The basket of tropical fruit she carries and the turban with expensive feather that she wears suggest an exotic difference from her more conventionally styled white cousin, who is sitting reading a book.