Gibbons was born in
Essex, but her family moved to
Holton le Moor (Lincolnshire) in 1907 when Gibbons was five. Through her father, Rev. Thomas Gibbons, she attended meetings of the
Lincolnshire Naturalists' Union as a child and joined as a member when she was 18. She became the Botanical Secretary of the LNU in 1936, a position she held for more than 50 years, and served as the Union's President for the first time in 1939. In 1946, she joined the
Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland and became the
vice-county recorder for the two Lincolnshire Vice-counties (VC 53 and 54). She was an avid field-worker and contributed a large number of records to the dataset for Lincolnshire; her contributions were consolidated in her 1975 publication
The Flora of Lincolnshire. The
Flora of Lincolnshire, which was the first flora of that county, was the first county flora to be written by a woman. She was also the first woman elected as president for a second term by the Lincolnshire Naturalists’ Union. In her fieldwork she also worked with
John H. Chandler. Gibbons was also active in, and a founder of, the Lincolnshire Naturalists’ Trust, an affiliation of the Union, that focused on conservation work. Gibbons personally undertook the rescue of
Iris spuria by transplanting specimens to
Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Gibbons was also interested in the history of botanists, and recorded notes about botanists’ lives throughout her work, which she used to inform research about their collections. Gibbons was elected as a
Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1969. She was also a member of the
Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology. For twenty eight years Gibbons was assistant county secretary of the
Girl Guide Association, and was active in the handicapped guides at county level. Gibbons moved with two sisters from Holton le Moor to Northlands House in
Glentworth, after the death of her brother in 1972. She died there in 1988. == Legacy ==