Her parents went to live in London and she began to study painting there, becoming a pupil at the Royal Academy Schools where her teachers were Lord Leighton, P. H. Calderon, R.A., and John Pettie, R.A.[1] She won a gold medal at the Royal Academy for history painting in December 1871.

It was noted how these three women's achievements revealed the silliness of the rules that excluded women from becoming full members of the Royal Academy.

[3] Macgregor exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893's World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.

[4] Her painting In the Reign of Terror (1891; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) was included in the 1905 book Women Painters of the World.

[5] This article about a British painter born in the 19th century is a stub.