Pease was born in Westbury-on-Trym the daughter of devoted Quakers, Thomas Pease (1816–1884) and Susanna Ann Fry (1829–1917; sister of the judge Edward Fry); she was one of her father's fifteen children as he had children by previous marriages.

[1] Her father had been a wool comber and her mother came from the Fry family known for manufacturing chocolate.

[2] When University College, Bristol took on its first female students in 1876, Pease was also one of the first three women (alongside Amy Bell and Emily Pakeman) to earn a scholarship.

By 1892 she was back at her alma mater where she lectured supporting women who wanted to be elementary teachers.

The settlement had a welfare units for infants and a school and the regional headquarters of the Works Educational Association.