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Born at Teeswater, Ontario, she was educated there and married at the age of 18. She moved with her husband to Port Arthur, Ontario, but in 1896 her husband died. It was then that she decided to become a professional painter. Earlier she had visited
Toronto in the summer and had taken some instruction under Mr. And Mrs. G.A. Reid, and at another time under Wyly Grier. She traveled to Germany with friends where she studied for three months under Franz Skarbina in Berlin. It was Skarbina who led her
into colour. In the succeeding summers she stayed in Italy, Holland, and finally Paris where she studied portrait painting under J. Blanche at the Vittie Academy also drawing under Mereon and Gervais. She attended private classes in painting as well as
from Castaluchi. Of this period Florence Deacon of The Canadian wrote “That first winter and every subsequent one at Paris was crowded with incessant labour, each day the long hours from eight to twelve and from one to five being used unfailingly for
work and only the interference of her friends prevented many of the evenings being spent in the same way.” In 1905 two of her watercolours were hung at the Paris Salon. Invariably she consulted Gervais in choosing her entries for the annual exhibit, and
her paintings continued to be shown there with the exception of the year she spent at Winnipeg. In Winnipeg she had a large class of pupils but she wanted further study and travel and returned to Europe. There she visited Florence, Berlin, Vienna, Paris,
and spent four months studying interior painting in Holland. She returned to Canada in 1911 and held a showing of nearly 150 paintings in Toronto where they were well received. Describing them Florence Deacon noted “The first impression of Mrs.
Hamilton’s work as seen in her Canadian exhibition of nearly 150 pictures is of splendid colouring; originality in composition and subjects and of dignity and poetry in their handling. Probably the best from a technical standpoint were four interiors,
‘The Pantheon’, ‘The Victory in the Louvre’, ‘Napolean’s Tomb’, and ‘Notre-Dame’, in which the sentiment of the buildings was caught without too much attention to detail.” Ms. Deacon further related how the artist worked in oils on dull days and in
watercolours on brighter days. She also noted how Mrs. Hamilton avoided the freakish, sensual, and the sensational. Her paintings toured several centers in Canada including the Calgary Public Library in 1913. It was around this time that she did a number
of pastel portraits of Indians which were later exhibited in Paris. She also painted scenes of the Rockies which included views at Banff, Lake Louise, Emerald Lake and elsewhere. In 1912 she painted portraits of B.C.’s lieutenant governors which now hang
at Government House, Victoria. In 1919 she went to Europe to paint the battlefields of France and Belgium where Canadian soldiers had fought and died. She completed 227 canvases and was invited by the French government to exhibit those scenes of French
battlefields in the foyer of the Grand Opera House in Paris in 1918. Although she was later offered a sum of money by the San Francisco Art Gallery for the battlefield scenes she gave them to the Canadian Archive in Ottawa. She was honoured by the Palme
Académique which was conferred on her by the Minister of Beaux Arts, M. Berard, of France and in 1922 was named Officier d’Académique of France. In 1925 she received a diploma and gold medal for her exhibit at the Paris Exposition Internationale. She
lived in Victoria, B.C. for many years where she painted scenes and portraits. Tragically she lost her sight in 1948. In March of 1952 an exhibition of her paintings was held in the Vancouver Art Gallery. She died in Vancouver, B.C. in 1954 where she had
spent her last days. A memorial exhibition of her work was held in conjunction with the work of Sophie Deane-Drummond at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in November of 1959. Her works are, or were, owned by the following collectors or collectors’
estates: Mr. William R. Miller, Sir Edward Clouston, Dr, Ami, The Duchess of Connaught (patron of Mrs. Hamilton’s first exhibitions), Sir Robert Borden, Dr. and Mrs. Clifford Carl, Miss Ellen Hart, Mr. And Mrs. E.G. Hart, Mr. And Mrs. D. Ingham and
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