Mary was very well educated. She was the governess for the children of a widower Count in Belgium. He wanted to marry Mary but she left and went back to England.

She discovered that her father had re-married a widow with two daughters who were “fiendish” and ill-treated the Incledon children. In 1872, at the age of 21, she took her sixteen year old siblings, Philip and Ellen and emigrated to Australia on the “Colonial Empire” . The ship's master was James Bruce. The 1305 ton sailing ship sailed for Melbourne with provisions for 140 days. 190 Mary worked as an interpreter on the ship. 194 Her older brother William was not on the same ship so he may have been already in Australia. 190

She went to Ballarat where she continued work as an interpreter. She was a governess when she married in Ballarat.

Margaret Craig remembered Mary as a dignified, stiff backed old lady with white lace collars and a walking stick.