Eliza Brightwen née Elder (30 October 1830 – 5 May 1906) was a Scottish naturalist and author.

She was self-taught, and many of her observations were made in the grounds of The Grove in Stanmore, the estate outside London which she shared with her husband during his lifetime and where she lived as a widow.

[1] She expressed interest in natural history as a child and described her youth as "extremely lonely and quiet".

The couple moved to Stanmore and lived in a house called Elderslie, in Bushey, Hertfordshire.

When George Brightwen died in 1883 she emerged from reclusiveness, to be active intellectually and physically, but continued to suffer from body pains for the rest of her life.

She socialized with Philip Henry Gosse (whose second wife, also named Eliza Brightwen, was her husband's sister), William Henry Flower, William Hooker, and James Paget.