Born in Braintree, Essex to Augustus Charles Veley and Sophia Ludbey,[1] she was second in a family of four daughters.
She died in her early forties after a short illness "caused by a chill and ending in an affection of the throat.
"[2] Margaret Veley's writing ranged from short and long fiction to poetry.
Although earlier works included elements of romance and humour, her later works were deemed melancholy and depressing, a tone which was ascribed to the premature deaths of her father and two sisters.
[2] Having the theme womanly self-sacrifice, it appeared serially in the Cornhill Magazine.