Elizabeth Anne Theophila Rawdon was born on 2 October 1793, child of Frances (née Hall-Stevenson) and Captain the Hon.

John Theophilus Rawdon (died 1808), the brother of Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings.

She spent much of her childhood in Europe, particularly Vienna and 'received an education more suited to a boy than a girl' at that time, including a deep knowledge of French, German, Spanish, and Italian, Greek and Latin as well as botany, astronomy and classical literature.

[1] Elizabeth Anne Rawdon married Lord George William Russell on 21 June 1817.

A beautiful and energetic cosmopolitan who had enjoyed a broad European education, Lord Byron praised her in Beppo as "[one] whose bloom could, after dancing, dare the dawn".