She was the daughter of Henry Martin Aitken, a surgical instrument manufacturer, and his wife, Elizabeth Atkinson.

She had an elder sister and a younger brother Charles Aitken who would lead the Tate Gallery.

He died in 1875 but he requested that Edith should attend the North London Collegiate School (NLCS) where her elder sister, Rose, was already teaching.

Rose had attended Girton College and in 1879 Edith left NLCS and followed her sister.

She was at Notting Hill High School in 1886 where in 1891 she published an Elementary Textbook of Botany She returned to Frances Buss's North London Collegiate School as a science teacher and in 1899 she left to teach chemistry at Bedford College.

The school was opened and conducted with the earnest hope that here girls of different races and different denominations might meet in the commonwealth of letters which gave Erasmus and Shakespeare to the World; to acquire there, in accordance with the ideals of Christian Duty, the healthy physique, the trained mind and the disciplined character which should fit each to live worthily in that state of life unto which it should please God to call her.