Winifred Bryers was born in Sunderland. After attending Sunderland High School she was educated at Ursuline Convents in Belgium and Germany and then at the Mary Datchelor School, London. She came to Girton to read Modern Languages 1901-05, obtaining the Fanny Metcalfe Prize in 1903 and a BA from Trinity College Dublin, 1905 (quasi ad eundem). She trained in teaching at St Mary's College Paddington and spent one term and two long vacations at Munster and Wurzburg preparing for her PhD degree (Wurzburg, 1910, magna cum laude for a thesis on Walter Landor). She was Assistant Lecturer in Medieval and Modern Languages at Girton College, 1906-10 and also gave courses in English Literature at Newnham College, Cambridge. She died at Girton College in 1910.