Rosemary Neville Wighton was born on 6 January 1925, the third child of Arthur Seaforth and Rose Ada (née Kelly) Blackburn.

[1] She was educated at the Wilderness School before attending the University of Adelaide, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (honours).

[2] In 1979 she wrote the introduction to a facsimile edition of A Mother's Offering to her Children by Charlotte Barton.

[9] In her final year she received first-class honours in English and won the John Howard Clark prize.

[10] In the 1988 Queen's Birthday Honours Wighton was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for "public service, to literature and to the community".