Born in England to Fanny Flinn and the Australian landscape artist Walter Withers, Margery was brought to Australia aged six months to live at the Charterisville estate in East Ivanhoe, Victoria.

[1] Margery Withers studied art at the National Gallery School and the Working Men's College.

[3] Withers was engaged to fellow student, John (Jack) Martin Paterson, who dedicated a sketch of a kitten to her while a soldier during World War 1.

[4] In 1927 Withers married Richard Matthew McCann, an artist and a founding member of Twenty Melbourne Painters.

Withers painted figures and landscapes in both oil and watercolours, and taught art at Swinburne College for several years, though as a married woman she was asked to resign in 1928 and reapply for a temporary position, without benefits.