Daughter of Thomas Francis and Georgina Hyland of Brighton, Vic., Hyland was one of four children. She was educated at Miss Kentish's School, Castlemaine, and by Madame Marvel. She came to Adelaide in 1870 at the age of 8, spending most of her life with her grandmother, Mrs Mary Penfold, with whom she lived at The Grange, Magill after the death of Dr Christopher Rawson Penfold, her grandfather.
Her obituary in the Adelaide Observer (January 16, 1892) said that 'From her childhood she exhibited great intelligence, and as she grew to womanhood it became apparent that she was richly endowed with mental powers. Of a retiring disposition, she lived the life almost of a recluse, but her days and nights were spent in patient study, due unfortunately perhaps to the injury of her health.'
She contributed poems and letters to the Adelaide Observer, although seldom under her own name, and was 'a woman admired for her outstanding literary talents and loved for her unceasing work among the needy'. She died in 1892 in her 29th year.
