Stapleton was born in
Eaton Bishop in 1837. Her Catholic parents were Ann Helen (born Cox) and John Thomas Dolman. Her father practiced medicine in York. In 1884, she and her husband's last child was born and about this time she took an interest in local history around Kidlington. They were both members of the Oxfordshire Archaeological Society and her husband served on its committee and as its treasurer. Her ambition was only to understand the local history for her own interest and she would visit libraries, local records offices, and churchyards to further her research. Her writing came to the notice of a local academic and he persuaded her to publish her work. In 1893,
Three Oxfordshire Parishes: a History of Kidlington, Yarnton, and Begbroke was "Printed for the Oxford Historical Society at the
Clarendon Press". This debut work was followed in 1906 by the more substantial book,
A History of the Post-reformation Catholic Missions in Oxfordshire: With an Account of the Families Connected with Them. In both of these cases she used the nom de plume of "Mrs. Bryan Stapleton" and her husband enjoyed the recognition she received and he would call her his "walking encyclopaedia". Two of her sons were killed at war in South Africa and in 1903 her husband died. ==Death and legacy==