From the age of seventeen, she worked upholstering furniture, but in her spare time she studied economics, history and English literature at the Birkbeck Institute.
[1] Wilkinson became interested in trade unionism, and in 1875 she was elected as secretary of the London Upholsteresses' Society, a body affiliated to the Women's Protective and Provident League.
[1] The group hoped that she would recruit working women to their cause, and she gave numerous speeches around the region, and in South Wales, with considerable success.
A contemporary described how 'she knew how to touch the feelings of her hearers, whilst her knowledge of economics, her clear insight into social matters, and her sound judgment, made her speaking both useful and effective.
[1] An obituary in the National Reformer stated that 'Her untimely death was due to disease contracted during six weeks' starvation at a time when she was out of work, and had relations dependent on her exertions.