She was born too early to take advantage of women's higher education and her father took the credit for some of her work.

Her parents were Janet and Benjamin Hall Kennedy and her elder sister was called Charlotte and she too would campaign for women's suffrage.

[1] She and her younger sister Julia stayed in the family home and moved to Cambridge with their parents when her father became Regius Professor of Greek in 1867.

They were active in Cambridge from the family home in Bateman Street advancing reforming liberal views.

[2] Marion Kennedy generously financed and was the executive secretary of the Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women in Cambridge which became part of Newnham in 1880.

[5] In 1913, there was a problem with the copyright on the book Revised Latin Primer which had been published under her father's name in 1888.

They were persuaded that they should not risk litigation as the book had been issued under their father's name and they had made no public claim to authorship.