About the Book
Mrs. Simcoe
Available Now
Born into war and orphaned at birth, Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim Simcoe lived through some of the most dramatic upheavals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From the genteel world of the English landed gentry to rugged colonial Canada, she bore witness to political, industrial, and personal revolutions. Mrs. Simcoe: A Life in the Age of Revolution traces the impressive journey of a woman whose private life intersected with public change. As wife to John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, Elizabeth documented colonial life in words and watercolours, offering an intimate lens on empire, gender, and cultural change.
Historian Kerry M. Abel draws on rich archival sources to bring Elizabeth’s world to life, exploring how one woman negotiated faith, family, and identity in an age of empire and social transformation.
This is a compelling read for history lovers, readers of women’s biography, British history, and anyone interested in pre-confederation Canadian history. Mrs. Simcoe reveals the hidden influence of a woman who shaped and was shaped by her times.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
PART 1: Starting Out 7
CHAPTER 1 – A Childhood Tapestry 9
CHAPTER 2 – “More than an army in himself” 46
CHAPTER 3 – On the Brow of the Blackdown Hills 79
PART 2: Building a New World 125
CHAPTER 4 – An Extremely Pleasant Diversity of Scene 127
CHAPTER 5 – War 173
CHAPTER 6 – In Defence of the Realm 203
PART 3: The Dark Years 251
CHAPTER 7 – A Rehearsal of Death 253
CHAPTER 8 – An Unwilling Adieu 286
CHAPTER 9 – Building the Bulwark 321
PART 4: Rebirth 361
CHAPTER 10 – The Path of Present Duty 363
CHAPTER 11 – “The revolution is made” 402
CHAPTER 12 – A Christian in Life and Death 445
REVIEWS
What readers are saying
“This is an engrossing biography that gives us an intimate glimpse of the formation of Ontario’s social and political lasting culture and then entices us to gaze through a fascinating window onto the tensions and pretensions of nineteenth century British society as it contended with socio and economic change that rattled its core values, values that Elizabeth Simcoe both prized and questioned.”
Duncan McDowall
Kingston, Ontario
Read the full review in the Kingston Historical Society's newsletter:
https://www.kingstonhistoricalsociety.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/this.pdf
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For more on the Kingston Historical Society:
https://www.kingstonhistoricalsociety.ca/
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"This incredibly well-researched biography by a distinguished Canadian historian fully introduces Elizabeth Simcoe (1762-1850), the clever and talented wife of the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. Kerry Abel expertly navigates the reader through Mrs. Simcoe’s five years in Canada (1791-1796) as well as major events in her life in England before and after her marriage to John Graves Simcoe, a soldier of modest origins. Left a widow after her husband’s death in 1806, she devoted her life to her family of nine children, her large estate in Devon, and to the well-being of the Church of England, an important cause of her late husband."
Donald B. Smith
Professor Emeritus
University of Calgary
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