Johnson gave Hester Maria her lifelong nickname "Queeney" (after Queen Esther)[1] early in her childhood, and was a regular correspondent of the little girl as well as of her mother.

Queeney's father died in 1781, and in 1784 her mother married the children's Italian music teacher, Gabriele Mario Piozzi, a Roman Catholic, causing public scandal and leading to a rift with them.

The newlyweds went abroad for more than two years and between July 1787 and March 1793 there was no communication between her and her daughter Queeney[6] who went on to make an independent London life for herself, with a respectable widowed friend as chaperone.

Lord and Lady Keith were a prominent and well-connected society couple: they had one daughter, the Hon Georgina Augusta, born in December 1809, and the baby's sponsors were the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence, both future kings of the United Kingdom.

[8] After Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, Lord Keith retired from the Royal Navy and the family lived mainly on their large estate at Tulliallan, where they had a magnificent castle constructed which is now the Scottish Police College.