She went into t St Mary's national school, Quarry Hill, Leeds as a girl pupil teacher in 1865.
By the following year she had a kindergarten certificate and she went on to attend the Home and Colonial College in London.
[1] There she learned about new ideas in education created by Heinrich Pestalozzi and Friedrich Froebel.
They married in Kings Norton and she went on to work at Nottingham's Blue Bell Hill Board school in 1885[2] which had opened two years before.
She is creditted with introducing play into teaching and to make the tone of the classroom less intimidating.