Born in Darlington as Sophia Pease, she was brought up as a Quaker and as an activist in liberal politics.
She and her sister Mary Anna were educated at home, and for one year at a school in Frenchay, where she met Sarah Sturge and Theodore Fry.
[1] She corresponded with members of various women's liberal associations around the country, and in 1886 invited fifteen of them to her house to discuss forming a national federation.
This was agreed, and the Women's Liberal Federation (WLF) was established in London in 1887, Fry becoming its honorary secretary.
As a result, when the policy was voted in, she left to become a founder of the rival Women's National Liberal Association, serving as its vice-president.