Margaret Mackenzie was born in Knockbain, Easter Ross, Scotland, in 1789, the fourth child and second daughter of the clergyman Roderick Mackenzie. Her mother Margaret (May) was the sister of the director of the East India Company, Charles Grant. In 1820, she married the Revd William Fraser, and the couple travelled to India, where he was a chaplain with the East India Company. Margaret’s correspondence with her family documents her experience of early nineteenth-century India and also sheds light upon the social history of the contemporary Highlands gentry. Margaret died of consumption (tuberculosis) at Bhagalpur in Uttar Pradesh on 8 Oct. 1826.