She was a vocal opponent of Eleanor Anne Ormerod's campaign seeking the extermination of the house sparrow and was an anti-vivisectionist.

[1] Carrington was born in Swainswick, Bath,[2] into a wealthy family of naturalists.

[3] She was influenced by Charles Kingsley, who introduced her to study natural history and took on herself the "wish for no higher mission than to live and die in the cause of God's beautiful and sinless mute creatures.

One series, Animal Life Readers, edited by Carrington and Ernest Bell was illustrated by Harrison Weir and others.

[citation needed] Carrington died at the age of 75, on 23 January 1929 in Bristol.