Beard was educated at Alexandra College, gaining a first class honours degree in modern languages in 1907.
After teaching at Nottingham High School for a year, she became lecturer in modern languages at Girton College, Cambridge.
[1] Dora Russell recalled her there as "a tall elegant Irish woman with a slight stoop and a lorgnette and a very agreeable brogue".
From 1918 to 1920 she worked as an Administrative Assistant in the Livestock Branch of the Ministry of Food, for which she was appointed an OBE in 1920.
[1] At weekends she lived with her Girton friend Eileen Power, in a half-house at 20 Mecklenburgh Square.