In 1903 Merz won the Gladstone Prize for an essay on early Whig politicians; this work was later published as The Junto.
[2] In October 1904 Merz was admitted to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she studied philosophy, history and economics for one year.
Merz also helped to run a nursery in the West End of Newcastle for babies whose mothers worked in local factories.
In December 1916, Merz joined a group of local Quakers in signing a notice in the Newcastle Journal which called for a negotiated peace.
[6] In 1928 Merz opened a second hostel which trained spinsters and childless widows, aged 18 to 35, in domestic work with a view to sending them to the Dominions.
[1] A month later, Merz wrote to the Newcastle Evening Chronicle and encouraged other mothers to evacuate their children to the Lake District.