[1] She was the daughter of John Gardner Kinnear FRSE,[2] a businessman and founder of John G. Kinnear & Co, commission merchants based at 17 St Vincent Place in the city centre.
In 1860 she was employed by the British minister Lord and Lady Ann Napier to educate their children at their home in the Netherlands.
[5] Despite being largely self-taught Kinnear came with glowing recommendations from the schools she had worked at previously.
[1] When she retired, she was replaced by Margaret Paulin Young who had been a founding pupil of the Park School.
[7] Kinnear died in Edinburgh in 1914 after spending some time speaking mostly in Russian.