Amalia Heredia Livermore (March 3, 1830 - October 16, 1902) was the youngest of ten siblings in a family in which, in addition to a Catholic education, they were taught a love for the fine arts.
At the age of twenty she married Jorge Loring Oyarzábal, an influential engineer, businessman and politician, who would later become a marquis, with whom she had nine children. After her marriage, she transformed her residence in Malaga into a botanical garden, like the ones she had known in her travels through Europe. This is the La Concepción Botanical Garden, which can still be visited today in Malaga. Also interested in collecting, she acquired with her husband the tables of the Lex Flavia Malacitana, a piece composed of two copper plates of the first century AD, which contains part of the legislative articles of the Roman Malaga. That acquisition was the germ of what is known as the Loringiano Museum, which Amalia and Jorge built in their residence by collecting archaeological pieces from many different places.
She also financed the Hospital de San Julián, the Civil Hospital of Málaga, and the Colegio de La Asunción, with which she brought to Málaga the nuns of the French congregation that had founded Santa María Eugenia de Jesús. The first students of the school were Amalia's own daughters, although the school also welcomed girls who otherwise would not have had access to education.
Being a woman who had received in her house illustrious personalities such as King Alfonso XII or the Empress Sissi, it is said that when she was visiting with her husband in the Alhambra in Granada, a fire broke out. She, without hesitation, began to carry buckets of water to put it out, working as a laborer without any fear that her dress would be ruined.
In addition, when the couple moved to Madrid, Amalia Heredia was a founding member of the Royal Spanish Society of Natural History and a member of the Order of Noble Ladies of Maria Luisa, an order created by Charles IV in 1792 to distinguish noblewomen who stood out for their services or qualities.
