Her pioneering efforts in art education and advocacy were recognized with her appointment as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1950.

A sister was Alice Anderson, mechanic, chauffeur and Kew Garage proprietor who ran a pioneering women's taxi service.

[2] Growing up as the eldest daughter with five siblings, and due to her father's peripatetic employment, Frances was educated by various governesses and briefly attended Lauriston Girls' School.

From 1901 (1903 according to some sources),[3] until 1906 the family relocated to New Zealand, where Frances attended the Dunedin branch of the South Kensington Art School.

[4] Between 1911 and 1913, Frances attended the National Gallery Art School and sculpture classes at Eastern Suburbs Technical College.

[11] Derham's 20-year-old brother Stewart's death in 1913 by drowning while surf fishing off South Head,[12][13] caused financial strain on the family.

She was invited in 1935 by Margaret Lyttle to teach at "Preshil" Kindergarten and Primary School and Mercer House (Associated Teachers' Training Institute) and her commitment to 'child art' developed from that experience.

The little child can often record amazing mental Impressions, but he cannot copy, nor can he draw from- nature without strain and damage to this other faculty of his.

She was Australia's representative at conferences of the International Society for Education Through Art (InSEA) in 1960 and 1963 and also served as a visiting lecturer at Columbia University, New York, in 1963.

[22] George Bell wrote: "The whole effect of the show is stimulating and is a lesson on the encouragement of natural expression in art to all teachers and, indeed, to all artists who are not mentally sterile.

[28] In 1960 she was to visit Papua New Guinea for five days and again in 1967, on which occasion she judged an art show, accepting as winner of the abstract section a painting by a group of golfers that they had entered as a joke.

Unrepentant, in a press statement Derham said it won because the free and uninhibited party atmosphere in which it had been produced resulted in a joyous image.

For a 1931 exhibition held by the Society a modernist child's nursery was displayed, decorated with the work of members; a fairytale frieze by Jessie Traill and Ann Montgomery, plaques by Ola Cohn, and the Australian blackwood table and bed were designed by Derham.

[34] In March 1929, Derham wrote on 'A place for handicrafts in education,'[35] and designed the cover of its journal, The Recorder, which featured Aboriginal motifs.