Glaister was born in
Beckley in 1839. Her parents were Elizabeth (born Burrill) and the Reverend William Glaister. She was the first of their four children. Her father was the rector of All Saints Church in Beckley in Sussex. Her father died in 1861 and her brother, another Reverend William Glaister, became an important figure in her life. In 1871, she and her mother and two of her siblings, Lucinda and Harry, moved from Hastings to be closer to her brother in
Southwell in Nottinghamshire. In 1873,
Marcus Ward & Co. published her first novel,
The Markhams of Ollerton which referred to the church of
Southwell Minster. Her brother, William, was the curate and later vicar of
St Wulfram's Church, Grantham (in 1876). Elizabeth created ecclesiastical embroideries for the church She and her cousin, Mortimer Sarah Lockwood, worked together to create a study of Art Needlework that was published in 1878. It was an early study of "Art Embroidery" that was "a Treatise on the Revived Practice of Decorative Needlework". even though it had included material from her previous work and designs by
Thomas Crane.
Myra’s Journal of Dress and Fashion noted that her volume gave "much needed counsel". Glaister died in
Southwell in 1892 in The Burbage. ==References==