Maria Eaton was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, the youngest of six children of the drysalter, Edward Eaton, and his wife, Ellen (née McDonnell). Baptised on 4 June 1862, she grew up at Upton Cottage, Upton, near Macclesfield. By 1881, the family was living at Lower Beech House, Tytherington. Though little is known of her education, Eaton was awarded a medal by the South Kensington Schools.
It seems that Maria Eaton visited Canada during the 1880s, and in 1889 exhibited a work at the Art Association of Montreal.
However, by early in 1891, she had returned to England and had set herself up at Mr Head’s bookshop in the High Street, Congleton, Cheshire, first holding an exhibition and then giving classes in painting and drawing. A decade later, she was based at Burlington House, 238 Oxford Street, Manchester (now Oxford Road), and describing herself, in the Census of 1901, as an ‘artist photographer [on her] own acc[ount]’, though nothing is known of her photography. She painted miniatures of Sir Alfred Hopkinson (vice-chancellor of the Victoria University of Manchester between 1901 and 1913) and Edwin Waugh (a Lancashire poet), showing the latter in 1904, as her first exhibit at the Royal Academy. In 1905, she held a solo show of miniatures at Burlington House.
By 1906, Maria Eaton had moved to London, and settled at the Studio, 49 College Road, Haverstock Hill. However, in 1907, she was living at 5 Adelaide Road, South Hampstead, and in 1908 at 240 High Holborn. This period of her career culminated in 1912 with a solo show of watercolours of Badminton House and its surroundings at Frost & Reed, 8 Clare Street, Bristol.
In 1913, Maria Eaton married the architect and artist, Ernest Llewellyn Hampshire, who was 20 years her junior, at Holy Trinity Church, Vauxhall Bridge Road, close to her home at 11 Ponsonby Terrace. Hampshire was living with his parents at 20 Thrale Road, Streatham, and the bridal couple may have begun their married life at this address, as it is inscribed on the reverse of her depiction of Augustus John. However, within a year, they moved into the Studio, 193c Alexandra Road, St John’s Wood. For the first years of their marriage, at least until 1922, they stayed each summer, at the Studio, Baldrine, Lonan, on the Isle of Man, in order to paint. In 1914, they held a joint exhibition of landscapes of the Isle of Man with Yeend King at their London studio. By 1927, Maria had become a member of the Society of Miniaturists.
Working increasingly as a painter of landscapes and flowers, Maria exhibited at the Society of Women Artists (from 1919), the Salon des Artistes Françaises, Paris (from 1928), and especially the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (from which Queen Mary bought Spring Flowers in 1922).
In 1931, the Hampshires moved into the former home of Ernest’s parents at 20 Thrale Road, Streatham, and Maria began to exhibit at the Streatham Art Society.
Continuing to exhibit until 1937, Maria Eaton died in St James's Hospital, Balham, on 28 May 1944.
With thanks to Anthony J Lester, HonRMS FRSA, for contributing information to this biography.
