Her English father served in the Royal Navy and met Adela's mother (who was born in Somerset, England) while in Tasmania.

[1] During her childhood the family spent time travelling through Europe, visiting France, Switzerland and Italy.

[2] With much of her time spent in Bath, with its Roman remains, the Bretons took a keen interest in the archaeology.

[4] Her time in Mexico was spent travelling on horseback across the country, using her artistic skills to record the friezes, carvings and other archaeological treasures that were being unearthed in the Yucatán.

[9][3] A collection of her work is held in Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, where a digitisation project was started in 2014 so that the fragile rolls of paintings can be preserved and made available for research.