Career
The wife of Elijah Impey, the Chief Justice of Bengal, she established a menagerie in Calcutta and commissioned Indian artists to paint the various creatures. Born Mary Reade in Oxfordshire, she was the eldest of the three children of John and Harriet Reade. In 1775, having settled in Fort William, Impey started a collection of native birds and animals on the extensive gardens of the estate, which had formerly been that of Henry Vansittart, governor of Bengal from 1760 to 1764.
She bore one more child back in England.
Her husband died in 1809 and she died in 1818 in Newick Park, near Lewes, East Sussex, and both were buried in Hammersmith parish church. The Himalayan monal (Lophophorus impejanus) was named in her honour.
A portrait of her made by Thomas Gainsborough sold for 2800 guineas at a Christies auction in 1904. The portrait is now in Furman University.