Elizabeth Jane Ross (17 September 1789 – 1 June 1875) was a Scottish poet, artist, and collector of Gaelic music.
[1] She was born to Captain Thomas Ross, a gunner assistant in the Royal Artillery who was badly wounded at the Siege of Seringapatam (now is the territory of India) in 1792,[2] and Isabella Rose Macleod in Perth, Scotland.
Shortly after her father's death in 1794, her sister was born and named Isabella Rose, after her mother, and was baptised at St. Mary's Church, Fort St. George (Madraspatnam).
[3] The sisters were sent to Scotland to be raised by a relative (probably her maternal grandfather, John McLeod (1761-1824), laird of Raasay) (an island between Skye and the mainland).
By her early 20s, she had transcribed 150 Gaelic airs, based on the playing of John McKay, piper to the laird of Raasay.
The Marchioness was related to the Governor-General, Marquis Hastings who invited the travelling party to stay at Government House as his guests.
[13] In 1815, she married Charles D'Oyly and resided in India until 1838, when her husband's sickness forced them to leave the country, then returned to Britain before moving to Italy.
Following her husband's death in 1845, Elizabeth returned to England and lived most of final years at Preston House, Steepleton Iwerne in Dorset, making occasional visits to the Macleod family home in Scotland.
In 2011, the School of Scottish Studies Archives of the University of Edinburgh released "The Manuscript of Elizabeth Ross", a compilation of Original Highland Airs, collected by her at Raasay in 1812.
Her portraits of Indian women have survived to the present day [23] and her husband included some of her sketches in a number of his publications, notably the Behar Lithographic Press Scrapbook (1828).
,[25] The manuscript of Scottish airs transcribed by Elizabeth has been archived by the University of Edinburgh for its cultural and historical significance.