Margaret Lindsay Ramsay

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

:See Margaret Lindsay for the film actress of this name, and Marion Margaret Violet Lindsay for the 19th and 20th-century artist, sometimes called Margaret Lindsay.

{{Infobox person

| name = Margaret Lindsay Ramsay

| image = File:Allan Ramsay - The Artist's Wife- Margaret Lindsay of Evelick, c 1726 - 1782 - Google Art Project.jpg

| caption = Margaret Lindsay by Allan Ramsay (Scottish National Gallery)

| birth_date = {{circa|1726}}{{cite web |title=The Artist's Wife: Margaret Lindsay of Evelick, c 1726 - 1782 |url=https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/5336/artists-wife-margaret-lindsay-evelick-c-1726-1782 |website=National Galleries of Scotland |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Burney |first1=Fanny |title=The Additional Journals and Letters of Frances Burney |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gJrxCQAAQBAJ&q=%22Margaret+Lindsay%22+1726&pg=PA167 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |date=2015|isbn=9780199658114 }}

| death_date = 1782

| spouse = Allan Ramsay

| children = 3

| parents = {{Plainlist|

• Sir Alexander Lindsay, 3rd Baronet
• Amelia Murray

}}

| relatives = {{Plainlist|

• John Lindsay (brother)
• Dido Elizabeth Belle (niece)

}}

| family = Clan Lindsay
Clan Murray

}}

Margaret Lindsay ({{circa|1726}}–1782) was a member of the Scottish Clan Murray and the eldest daughter of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick. She was a member of the Clan Lindsay, which joined the 1715 Jacobite rising. In 1752, she married the artist Allan Ramsay, later becoming the subject of several of his works.

Her marriage was a controversial one within her family. Their elopement on March 1, 1752, at Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh, made Lindsay Ramsay the artist's second wife, and the marriage did not have her parents' consent.{{cite book |last1=Lloyd |first1=Stephen |last2=Sloan |first2=Kim |title=The Intimate Portrait: Drawings, Miniatures and Pastels from Ramsay to Lawrence |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0ODqAAAAMAAJ&q=Margaret+Lindsay+1726 |publisher=National Galleries of Scotland |language=en |date=2008|isbn=9781906270148 }}{{cite web |title=The Scottish Visitors: Margaret Lindsay of Evelick |url=https://www.famsf.org/blog/scottish-visitors-margaret-lindsay-evelick |website=FAMSF |publisher=Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco |language=en |date=3 April 2015}} Her parents never forgave her for marrying lower than her station, but her brother John stayed loyal to her right up to his death. Allan Ramsay wrote to his new father-in-law to reassure him that, despite already having a daughter from his first marriage and two sisters to support, he could provide Margaret with an annual sum of £100 that would rise "as my affairs increase, and I thank God, they are in a way of increasing." However, he was fully aware that she was "entitled to much more than ever I shall have to bestow upon her," and reiterated that he had not married Margaret for her money but out of love.Ramsay to Lindsay, 31 March 1752, A. Smart, Allan Ramsay: painter, essayist, and man of the Enlightenment (1992), 96 n. 10{{cite book |last1=Smart |first1=Alastair |title=The Life and Art of Allan Ramsay |year=1952 |publisher=Routledge & Paul |page=62 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v9AIAQAAIAAJ&q=allan+ramsay+%22as+my+affairs+increase,+and+I+thank+God,+they+are+in+a+way+of+increasing%22 |language=en}}

Their marriage was a long and happy one which produced three surviving children – Amelia (1755–1813), Charlotte (1758–1818), and John (1768–1845). Other children died as babies: twins Alexander and Amelia, born 1752, and another Alexander, born 1754.{{cite book|author=Alexander Broadie|title=The Scottish Enlightenment|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vbu8BQAAQBAJ&pg=PT140|accessdate=28 August 2020|date=1 November 2012|publisher=Birlinn|isbn=978-0-85790-498-0|pages=140–}}