In May 1852, she married her cousin, Frank Wilson Oliphant, at Birkenhead, and settled at Harrington Square, now in Camden, London. Her husband was an artist working mainly in stained glass. Three of their six children died in infancy. The father himself developed alarming symptoms of consumption (tuberculosis). For the sake of his health they moved in January 1859 to Florence, and then to Rome, where he died. His wife, left almost entirely without resources, returned to England and took up the burden of supporting her three remaining children by her literary activity.