[2] As a young girl, Davenport Hill was fond of botany, which she studied at a day school.

As part of her schooling, she and her sister Florence interviewed the Irish writer Maria Edgeworth on 1 March 1840.

The family moved back to England, settling in Bristol, in 1851 due to Matthew Davenport Hill becoming a bankruptcy commissioner.

She worked at Carpenter's St. James ragged school and taught the children arithmetic and home economics.

She wrote a book about her experience titled "A Lady's Visit to the Irish Convict Prisons".

Inspired by the work there, Davenport Hill, and her sister, opened an industrial school for girls based on Mettray, in Bristol.

[1] Upon her father's death, Davenport Hill travelled to Adelaide in South Australia, to visit family including her reforming cousin Emily Clark.

[1] On 5 December 1879, Davenport Hill was elected a Progressive Party member of the school board for the City of London.

She became chairman of the cooking committee and published multiple papers on the subject in education.

[1] She was an early opposer of the school board's pension program for teachers, which was eventually abolished in 1895.

Upon her retirement, the Brentwood Industrial School was renamed the Davenport-Hill Home for Boys.