She was one of the twelve children born to Elizabeth (née Kearny) and Cortlandt Skinner, the Attorney-General of New Jersey and a descendant of the Schuyler and Van Cortlandt families of British North America,[1] When the American Revolutionary War ended in 1783, her father, who was a British loyalist, moved to Britain.

She rode on occasionally elephants while there, but was usually carried by servants in a single-poled sedan chair called a tonjon.

[5] Lady Nugent died in 1834 at Westhorpe House, and she was buried at St John the Baptist's Church in Little Marlow.

[2] Lady Nugent wrote a journal of her experiences in Jamaica, which was privately published in 1839[2] and made public in 1907.

[4] On 16 November 1797, she married George Nugent, who was an officer in the British Army and the Member of Parliament for Buckingham.