[1] Hanbury was born in St Pancras, London to surveyor and estate agent Matthew Henry Alcock (1841–1911) and his wife Elisabeth née Davis (1845–1916).
In 1891, as a teenager, she made her stage debut as Nancy Ditch in Robert Williams Buchanan's play Miss Tomboy in London's West End.
In August/September 1901 she appeared at the Imperial Theatre in London as Mrs. Prescott in Boyle Lawrence's military drama A Man of His Word opposite H. B.
[7][8] She was also part of the American premiere cast of the play A Bunch of Violets by Sydney Grundy at Abbey's Theatre in New York in February 1895 with the role of Countess Volkker.
[1] She and Arthur Fox divorced in 1923 following his adultery with an American woman, throwing Hanbury and her children into sudden financial difficulties.