Known for her prolific works, both large and small, choral and symphony. Her output included four piano quartets, three string quartets, an 1870 clarinet sonata, six concert overtures, and two symphonies, the first of which was composed when she was 24 and debuted by the Musical Society of London in 1863.
She began taking private lessons from William Sterndale Bennett and George Alexander Macfarren at a young age. Her first song was published in 1857.
Her operetta "Gisela of Rüdesheim" was staged by the Fitzwilliam Music Society of Cambridge in 1865, while her orchestration for "The Masque of Pandora" from 1875 was never finished.
She was the third child in an upper-class London family.
She was a contemporary of opera composer Arthur Sullivan.