[3] She was raised in Iffley, near Oxford, and was educated by governesses before attending the South Kensington Art School in London in her late teens.
Dilke initially wrote as a historicist on the philosophy of art,[2] then became a contributor to the Saturday Review in 1864.
She was subsequently and for many years a fine-art critic in the Academy periodical and from 1873 to 1883 was appointed as art editor.
[8] She is known to have attended an early women's suffrage meeting at Albert Hall in London, sitting with Millicent Fawcett and Harriet Grote, and became secretary of the Oxford branch of the National Society for Women's Suffrage.
[6] Her niece and friend, Gertrude Tuckwell (daughter of her sister Rosa and brother-in-law the Reverend William Tuckwell) worked with her closely in her feminist and trade unionist activities,[1] later becoming the first woman magistrate in London in 1919.