Enriqueta Augustina was born in Havana, Cuba, and was one of five children including José Esteban (later Stephen Joseph, who was her twin brother), Blanca Catalina and Leocadia Fernanda.

[1][2] Sometime after 1860, Enriqueta became companion to Martha, the wife of wealthy Manchester merchant John Rylands whose residence was Longford Hall in Stretford.

When John Rylands died in 1888, Enriqueta as the inheritor of most of his estate of £2,574,922[5] became a major shareholder of his family textile firm and in the Manchester Ship Canal.

She admired the design of Basil Champneys's library for Mansfield College, Oxford, and contracted him to develop something similar, on a more lavish scale.

She was committed to many philanthropic and missionary causes and bequeathed much of her wealth to educational and medical institutions (including the Victoria University of Manchester and the library she had founded).

[9][10] A full-length statue of Mrs Rylands, by Manchester sculptor John Cassidy, was commissioned by supporters of the Library and unveiled on 9 December 1907, a few months before her death.