She showed aptitude for music from her early years and took lessons privately from William Sterndale Bennett and George Alexander Macfarren, publishing her first song in 1857.

In November 1867, the year of her marriage to a lawyer, Frederick Meadows White, she was elected Female Professional Associate of the Royal Philharmonic Society.

Smith composed two large pieces for the stage: an operetta, Gisela of Rüdesheim for chorus, orchestra, and soloists which was performed in 1865 at the Fitzwilliam Music Society, Cambridge, and The Masque of Pandora (1875), for which the orchestration was never completed.

Her anthems Whoso hath this world's goods and By the waters of Babylon were performed in a liturgical context at St Andrew's, Wells Street by Sir Joseph Barnby in February 1864, making them the first recorded instance of music by a woman composer to be used for the liturgies of the Church of England.

[7] Leonard Sanderman edited the complete sacred choral music of Alice Mary Smith,[8] and recorded this repertoire with The Eoferwic Consort,[9] supported by an AHRC Knowledge Exchange Grant.