She was born in Mortlake, Surrey on 5 November 1858[1] to Fanny and James Smith, who owned and ran a building business.

[4] In 1905 she was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship enabling her to study seedling phases of rubber-producing sapotaceae under the direction of John Bretland Farmer.

[13] They did not want the women academics to be limited to a cramped, inadequate common room and planned a way of making the decision-makers take note of how much more space and comfort the men had.

After her death on 24 December 1925, a Winifred Smith Memorial trust fund, announced in The Times,[11] was set up in her honour.

The plan was to buy a cottage near her old farmhouse at Chiddingly, Sussex[15] for the benefit of women students and members of staff: for holidays etc.