Harriet Georgina Rowan-Hamilton Temple-Blackwood, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, was born on February 5, 1843, in Dublin, Ireland.

She was known for her success in the role of "diplomatic wife" to Marquis of Dufferin and Ava. She and their children travelled with him to Canada upon his appointment as Governor-General (1872-1878), where her assistance in turning Rideau Hall into a centre of social activity included literary readings and presentation of plays. Next, she joined him as he served as ambassador to Russia (1879-1881) and to the Ottoman Empire (1881-1884) where she received the Grand Crescent of the Turkish Order of the Chefakat in 1883, followed by the Persian Order of the Sun in 1887. In both St. Petersburg and Constantinople, as at all their embassies, the couple were known for their hospitality. In 1884, she followed her husband to India where she initiated Queen Victoria's plan to improve medical care for women in British India. Lady Dufferin established the National Association for Supplying Female Medical Aid to the Women of India, known as the Countess of Dufferin Fund. It aimed to provide medical tuition to doctors, hospital assistants, nurses and midwives, medical relief through dispensaries, female wards, female doctors, and female hospitals. She received the Crown of India in 1884 and the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert in 1895. She published her memoirs, based on the letters she had written to her mother, "Our Viceregal Life in India" (1889), "My Canadian Journal" (1891), and "My Russian and Turkish Journals" (1916). She was made a Dame of the Order of the British Empire in 1917.

In 1862, she married Frederick Hamilton Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquis of Dufferin and Ava (1826–1902). She died on October 25, 1936, in Chelsea, London, England and is buried in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland.