[3] The Harris family emigrated from England on the "William Bryan", a ship of the Plymouth Company of New Zealand.

[2] Harris' father was a civil engineer and surveyor as well as a competent artist who supported his daughters efforts in painting.

After spending several years in Australia she returned to Nelson where she joined her sisters in running a small primary school and giving private lessons in music, dancing and drawing.

[2] Harris also illustrated a children's book by Sarah Moore called Fairyland in New Zealand published in 1909.

[4] The book contains eight poems written by Harris, as well as "30 bound signatures, each featuring a watercolour of alpine flora and a facing page of typewritten text".

[8] Harris had hoped the book would be published in England by her cousin Lord Stuart Rendel and his wife Ellen, but after their deaths in 1913 and 1912 respectively, it seems the manuscript was returned to New Zealand unpublished.

[9] Harris's professional artistic development and success was constrained by family obligations, straitened finances and the conventions of her time.

[3] She continued to live and paint in the family home at Nile Street, Nelson, until her death aged 88, on 5 August 1925.