In 1885 she was in Wandsworth and Battersea where she volunteered as a visitor for the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants.
[1] In 1895 "Waifs and Strays" magazine described her as the epitome of their "type of female charity worker", because she was one of their "middle-aged unmarried ladies".
She joined the Conservative party's women's suffrage association but she appears to have not been an active supporter.
She supported the emigration committee of the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society which she joined in 1904.
[2] Grimes was still working for the Emigration Society[4] when she died on 10 January 1921 while visiting Cape Town.