Person    | Female  Born 26/4/1765  Died 15/1/1815

Lady Emma Hamilton

Categories: Friend / family, Seriously Famous

Countries: France

Mistress of Lord Nelson. Born Amy, Emma or Emy Lyon at Ness, Cheshire. Her early life was spent in poverty, but her beauty proved to be her fortune. She became the mistress of Charles Greville and then of Sir William Hamilton, whom she married in 1791. She met Nelson in 1793 and they had a child,Horatia. After Nelson's death, she fell into debt and moved to France to escape her creditors. Died in Calais.

Her story is well told in the 1941 film That Hamilton Woman, with Vivien Leigh playing an irresistible Emma; the Naples scenes are sumptuous.

Londonist's Scandal Mapped: The London Of Emma, Lady Hamilton contains a map of London as Emma would have plotted it. 

Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Lady Emma Hamilton

Commemorated ati

Merton Place

{Around the London Borough of Merton coat of arms:} Merton Place. Sixty metr...

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St Mary's trompe l'oeil - Hamilton

Emma lived in Greville's house on Paddington Green and it was here she met he...

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Other Subjects

Job Drain

Job Drain

Soldier. Born Job Henry Charles Drain in Barking, Essex. In WW1 he was a driver in the 37th Battery, Royal Field Artillery. On 26 August 1914 at Le Cateau, France, he and another driver saved two B...

Person, Armed Forces, France

3 memorials
Mihail Chemiakin

Mihail Chemiakin

Sculptor. He spent his early years in East Germany, where his father was serving in the army. Returning to Russia, he worked at the Hermitage museum. He was exiled in 1971 for failing to conform to...

Person, Sculpture, France, Germany, Russia

1 memorial
Claudius de Crespigny

Claudius de Crespigny

French refugee, husband of Maria de Vierville.

Person, Other, France

1 memorial
Special Operations Executive (SOE)

Special Operations Executive (SOE)

Spies, basically (but see below), working for the UK in WW2. Formed by Churchill and variously known as "Churchill's Secret Army", "The Baker Street Irregulars", the Pythonesque "Ministry of Ungent...

Group, Armed Forces, Espionage, France, Germany

10 memorials
Private Charles Henry Roome

Private Charles Henry Roome

There is some confusion over the spelling of the surname this man's family. It has been recorded variously as Room, Rooms and Roome. Charles Henry Room was born on 7 May 1880, one of the five chil...

Person, Armed Forces, France

War dead, WW1
1 memorial

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Penny Savings Bank

Penny Savings Bank

From Tottenham Quakers  "In 1798 Priscilla Wakefield founded the first "frugality bank" in England. This she founded at Ship Inn Yard in Tottenham. It was intended to help people on lower incomes t...

Concept, Commerce, Social Welfare

1 memorial
52 Tavistock Square

52 Tavistock Square

Lived in by Leonard and Virginia Woolf 1924-39. Our picture source also has some photos of the interior, and explains that, even though they have moved out, the destruction of this house affected V...

Building, Property

2 memorials
Camden Council

Camden Council

The Town Hall in Euston Road once housed these interesting murals by Cecil Osborne.

Group, Politics & Administration

28 memorials