She exhibited literary talent at an early age and in 1787 published her first novel, The History of Lady Emma Melcombe, and Her Family.
[3] Because of his views, in 1794 he eventually fled England for continental Europe, leaving Winifred in charge of the family bookstore and printing press.
[4][5] She continued to run the Hartshead Press until Joseph Gales' creditors enforced the couple's bankruptcy in 1796.
[7] With the political climate in England and a warrant for his arrest precluding her husband's return, Winifred Gales sold the Sheffield Register newspaper to its assistant editor, James Montgomery, who renamed it The Iris, and joined her husband in Altona in the Duchy of Holstein, Holy Roman Empire.
[1] Firm Unitarians and promoters of tolerance, the Gales left Raleigh for Washington, D.C. in 1833 amid growing orthodox trends in North Carolina.