After school, she studied history and Latin at the University of Sydney where she met Marjorie Barnard with whom she later formed a writing collaboration, under the name M. Barnard Eldershaw. She worked as a teacher, first at Cremorne Church of England Grammar and then, from 1923, at Presbyterian Ladies' College, Croydon, where she became senior English mistress and head of the boarding school. According to Dever, her Catholic education precluded her becoming headmistress. In 1941, she moved to Canberra to take up a government position, transferring to Melbourne in 1943 where she worked for the Department of Labour and National Service. In 1948 she started working as a private consultant in industrial matters such as women's legal rights and equal pay, and extending her interests into the welfare of Aboriginal and migrant women.