Elizabeth Hamilton (1756 or 1758 – 23 July 1816)[1] was a Scottish essayist, poet, satirist and novelist, who in both her prose and fiction entered into the French-revolutionary era controversy in Britain over the education and rights of women.

In Belfast, Hamilton's parents were on familiar terms with the town's prominent "New Light" Presbyterian families and with their Scottish Enlightenment social and political ideas.

Her later thoughts on child education were greatly influenced by David Manson's co-educational English Grammar School, which her older sister Katherine attended with other children from this progressive milieu.

[4] Manson advertised the school's capacity to teach children to read and understand the English language "without the discipline of the rod by intermingling pleasurable and healthful exercise with their instruction".

In 1808, Hamilton wrote The Cottagers of Glenburnie (1808), a celebrated tale of Scottish manners and mores which cast a critical eye on hardships and inequities endured by women in domestic life.

[4] The fictional Mr Gourley and Mrs Mason direct the teacher William Morrison's efforts to reorganise his school on a spare-the-rod monitorial system emphasising accountability and self-government.