Background
She was born as Janet Thomson at Carshill, Shotts parish, Lanarkshire in 1795, the daughter of a shoemaker. Her father at length settled down in business for himself as a shoemaker, and John Hamilton, one of his young workmen, married Janet in 1809.
Career
During her childhood the family moved to Hamilton, and then to Langloan, in the parish of Old Monkland, Lanarkshire. They lived together at Langloan for about sixty years, and had a family of ten children. Having learned to read as a girl, she became familiar with the Bible, with Shakespeare and Milton, with many standard histories, biographies, and essays, and with the poems of Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns.
Before she was twenty years old she had written numerous verses on religious themes, but family cares prevented further composition until she was about fifty-four.
Then she began to write essays for a supplement to Cassell"s Working Manitoba"s Friend, as well as poems in English and Scots and reminiscences of village and rural Scotland during her youth. A son, James, served as her amanuensis.
She died on 27 October 1873, aged 78, having never been "more than twenty miles from her dwelling". A large crowd of people attended her funeral, and a memorial fountain has been placed nearly opposite her cottage.