Although she has been said to have been born on 12 June 1838, her baptism is actually recorded as having taken place five years earlier, on 3 April 1833, in Liverpool.

[3] All of her brothers and sisters were actors: Rose, Louise, Charles Jr., Arthur and Pierre Leclercq.

She also performed in the Muleteer of Toledo, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor[4] and Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

She performed at the Adelphi Theatre, starring as Mercedes Monte Christo[4] and as Marguerite in No Thoroughfare in 1868 and as Emily Milburn in Black and White.

In 1877, she returned to England and married the actor John Nelson in York (the marriage entry gives her name as Margaret Carlotta Leclercq).