Her parents had married three years before in her mother's home town of Lewisham and her elder sister Lizzie Gadesden was born in 1851.

In the following year she was working for Cassandra Worthington as an assistant mistress at Minshull House school in Beckenham.

She worked briefly as a governess for Edward North Buxton where she studied further to gain entry to Girton College in Cambridge.

In 1884 she was one of the founders of the trade union called the Association of Assistant Mistresses in Secondary Schools Incorporated.

[3] She introduced change - students did gym in Gymslips and the new exercise replaced the previous idea of "drill".