She spent her younger years on board the ship, the Griper, her father, as lieutenant of the coast guard at that time, held command.

After her father's appointment to the rank of commander in 1842, Webster resided for six years in Banff Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

Later, following a short time in Penzance, Cornwall, in 1851 Webster resettled in Cambridge, as her father became the chief constable of Cambridgeshire.

Since the mid-1990s she has gained increasing critical attention from scholars such as Isobel Armstrong, Angela Leighton, and Christine Sutphin.

Her best-known poems include three long dramatic monologues spoken by women: A Castaway, Circe, and The Happiest Girl In The World, as well as a posthumously-published Sonnet Sequence, Mother and Daughter, of which her only child, Augusta, is its subject.