Ramsay-Laye was one of five children of Captain Robert Ramsay, 14th Regiment, and Margaret nee Cruickshank of Scotland. The family had considerable wealth generated from tea plantations in India. She married Major Frances Fenwick Laye, 25th (the King's Own Borderers) Regiment of Foot, in 1853. He was thirty-one years older than she, had ten children by his first wife and had just lost his second wife after a year's marriage. Ramsay-Laye's brother, Robert Ramsay, migrated to Australia in 1839 and acquired large pastoral holdings in Queensland. He was colonial treasurer in Queensland's Palmer government 1870-71 and retired to Howletts, Bekesbourne, Kent, England in 1877.
Ramsay-Laye visited Australia soon after her marriage in 1853. A family history, referring to Ramsay-Laye and her new husband, suggests that 'The two left for Australia, for gold and adventure, planning never to return, and leaving the children behind, probably with his mother, Mary Airey Laye. They returned unexpectedly in 1861, eight years later.' No documentation is provided to substantiate this assertion. It is clear Ramsay-Laye was resident in Australia for eight years during which her husband had a position in Victoria at the Diggings (Sellick, 2003). They also visited Dunedin, New Zealand in 1860, before returning to the United Kingdom.
Ramsay-Laye was active in the English women's movement, writing 'Women and Careers', Englishwoman's Review 9 (April 1878): 196 which alluded to the desirability and possibility of married women having careers. Ramsay-Laye also wrote as Elizabeth P. Ramsay: Hearts and Diamonds; or, Was It an Error? : a novel etc. (1870), Tales of the Daybreak. 1. Florry's Tree (1884) and The Adventures of a Bohemian (1907). Major Laye died in 1881 leaving Ramsay-Laye a wealthy woman who travelled widely and continued to write. She died at Lee Priory near the family residence of Howletts in Kent.
(Source: M. French, 'Ramsay, Marmaduke Francis (1860 - 1947)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 16, MUP, 2002, pp 54-55; 'Elizabeth Ramsey-Laye 1853' in Venus in Transit : Australia's Women Travellers 1788-1930, ed. Douglas R. G. Sellick (2003): 61; D. B. Waterson, 'Ramsay, Robert (1818 - 1910)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 6, MUP, 1976, pp 4-5)
