[1] She was a proponent of progressive education and improved teacher training, in both Britain and Australia, and was an active member of the Women's Freedom League.

[2] While at Maria Grey Training College, Newcomb met Margaret Emily Hodge, with whom she would go on to have a fifty-year friendship.

[1] Hodge became an honorary lecturer at the University of Sydney's Women's College, and the secondary teacher training courses were delivered there.

[1] Following some years of ill health for Hodge, both women returned to England in October 1908, and settled together in Maida Vale.

[1] After her death, friends and former pupils established a memorial fund (later the Newcomb-Hodge Fellowship) 'to foster the study of the aims and principles of true education'.

[1][5] In 1949, Rosine Guiterman published a book about Newcomb and Hodge subtitled 'a short account of two pioneers in education'.