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Elizabeth Yorke
Countess of Hardwicke
Born	Lady Elizabeth Scot Lindsay 1 October 1763 Balcarres House, Fife, Scotland
Died	26 May 1858 Tyttenhanger House, Hertfordshire
Spouse(s)	Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke
Issue	Philip Yorke, Viscount Royston
Father	James Lindsay, 5th Earl of Balcarres
Mother	Anne Dalrymple

Elizabeth Scot Yorke, Countess of Hardwicke (née Lindsay; 1 October 1763 – 26 May 1858) was a British playwright and member of the aristocracy.

Early life and education

Born to James Lindsay, 5th Earl of Balcarres and Anne Dalrymple, Hardwicke married Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke, on 24 July 1782. She became Countess of Hardwicke in 1796 when her husband succeeded his uncle. The couple had eight children, four boys and four girls. All four boys died young. Hardwicke regularly wrote and produced plays and performances in Wimpole Hall, but she was very conservative in her views and saw this less as a profession of writing than an example of her duty as a mother and charitable lady. In 1831 she was involved in the Irish Distress Committee raising money to relieve the suffering of poor Irish people. With the permission of Queen Victoria, she published The Court of Oberon, which she had written in the 1790s. She also provided the illustrations for the book.

She died at age 94 at Tyttenhanger House. She is buried in Chicheley Chapel in Wimpole, commemorated on the monument she had erected to the memory of her husband and sons.

Bibliography

• The Court of Oberon, or The Three Wishes. A Drama in Three Acts (1831)

References and sources

1. "Lady Elizabeth Scot Lindsay". Main Page. 28 December 2012. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
2. Center, Yale; Maj, Lec. "The court of Oberon, or, The three wishes". collections.britishart.yale.edu. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
3. Engel, L.; McGirr, E.M.; Brooks, H.E.M.; Bush-Bailey, G.; Francus, M.; Hawley, J.; Higa, J.; Jones, E.D.; Ledoux, E.M.; Lowerre, K. (2014). Stage Mothers: Women, Work, and the Theater, 1660–1830. Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture, 1650–1850. Bucknell University Press. p. 202. ISBN 978-1-61148-604-9. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
4. Franceschina, J.C. (2014). Sisters of Gore: Seven Gothic Melodramas by British Women, 1790-1843. Taylor & Francis. p. 460. ISBN 978-1-134-82089-4. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
5. "Deaths". The Times. The Times Digital Archive. 28 May 1858. p. 1.
6. "Dictionary of Irish Biography". Retrieved 25 September 2019.
7. Odell, Steve. "Monument Inscriptions from Monuments in Wimpole Parish Church". Wimpole Past. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
8. "The court of Oberon : Hardwicke, Elizabeth Yorke, Countess of, 1763-1858". 23 October 2016. Retrieved 25 September 2019.

• 1763 births
• 1858 deaths
• British countesses
• British women dramatists and playwrights
• Daughters of Scottish earls
• Clan Lindsay
• Nobility from Fife