[citation needed] She received a part-time education at a small local school only to the age of eight, before having to start work in service as a nurse.

"[2] Becker saw in Winbolt a valuable asset to the suffrage movement as a representative of the "working woman", and recruited her to campaign for women's rights.

[5] Winbolt first came to press attention in the early 1890s, when she was elected to the committee of the Union of Women's Liberal Associations for the Manchester area.

Reporting on a typical conference of the National Liberal Association the writer in The South Wales Daily noted: "Prominent features of the meeting were the utterances of Mrs. Winbolt, of Stockport, on the subjects of registration reform and the industrial position of women.

Herself an experienced workwoman, with a natural gift of eloquence and a burning desire to help women who have to earn their living by manual labour, she delighted and encouraged her fellow-delegates with her vigorous advocacy for limitations on the hours which young half-timers have to work and the placing of an equality of women with men so far as employment was concerned".

[17] After Alice Kearney's death in 1899, Winbolt seems to have retired to some extent from public life though she was still speaking about how women workers were disadvantaged in the silk and cotton trades because they had no vote.

In March 1902 she committed a Women's Suffrage Petition this time signed by 29,359 textile workers to Lancashire MPs to present to Parliament so earning her an even wider recognition in the press.

Besides her speaking engagements, Winbolt wrote many letters to various newspapers, politicians and influential people on issues concerning women.

She pasted copies of her published letters along with many cuttings from newspapers not fully attributed to sources into a large scrapbook now archived in Stockport Central Library.