[1] Mary was born on 28 September 1836, at Hove in Sussex, England, one of eleven children of the Reverend Robert Thorley Bolton and Jane Martha Ball.

On 8 April 1839 the Rev Bolton, his wife and six children, including Mary, left Plymouth, England on the barque Strathfieldsaye, arriving in Sydney, New South Wales on 25 July 1839,[2] and the family moved to Hexham, New South Wales where Rev Bolton was the minister at St Stephen's church.

[4] On 31 December 1857 Mary married William Charles Windeyer,[5] then a barrister and law reporter for the Empire.

The purpose of the society was to help find homes for children to remove them from state run orphanages.

[11] Mary's sister, Anne Jane Bolton, was one of the first women to sit the senior public examination in 1871, winning the Fairfax prize for the best female candidate.