Born Ann Maria Tree in London in August 1801, her father lived in Lancaster Buildings, St. Martin's Lane, was in the East India House.
Her first recorded appearance in an original role seems to have been as Princess Stella in the 'Gnome King,' a spectacular piece produced on 6 October 1819 at Covent Garden.
In various renderings, musical and otherwise, of Shakespearean comedy, she played with success Ariel, Viola, Imogen, Julia (in the 'Two Gentlemen of Verona'), Ophelia, and Rosalind.
This took place on 15 June 1825 in two of her original characters, Mary Coppin in Charles the Second by John Howard Payne, and Clari in the opera of that name, by the same author.
Shortly afterwards she married, under passably romantic circumstances, and after, it is said, an attempt at suicide, James Bradshaw, a man of property, they had a daughter, Harriet Maria.