She was home schooled and spent one year at Bedford College,[2] She married Percy Frankland in 1882, and with him developed an interest in the emerging science of bacteriology.

It was written in an open style to engage a wide audience[6] and included important bacterial information pertaining to food, drink, smoking, pollution, sewage, air and disease.

Such subjects as sewage disposal, the prevention of tuberculosis, micro-organisms in milk, air, and foods, which are of public importance, are fully dealt with.

......No one nowadays laying claim to a liberal education can dispense with a slight knowledge, at least, of microbes and their actions, and for such this work will prove an adequate text-book.

Together with her husband Percy Frankland she isolated the first pure culture of nitrifying bacterial strain (ammonia-oxidizer) in 1890.

[8] As mentioned above, her most notable work was Bacteria in Daily Life; this book, unlike her previous publications, was completed independently.