[2] Sophia was the daughter of Flora Campbell, 6th Countess of Loudoun, and her husband Francis Rawdon-Hastings, Earl of Moira.

Sophia's elder sister was Lady Flora Hastings, a lady-in-waiting at the court of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

[4] Sophia married the Marquess of Bute, who was fifteen years older than her, on 10 April 1845 at Loudoun Castle, Ayrshire,[5] his first wife, Lady Maria North, having died in 1841.

[9] She was also responsible for donating the land and financing the construction of All Saints Church for Welsh-speaking Anglicans, in Tyndall Street, Cardiff.

[9] In 1858, it was Sophia who granted the people of Cardiff the use of the Bute estates between Cathedral Road and the River Taff for use as the town's first public park.