The artist was the daughter of the 3rd Earl of Radnor born at Coleshill in Berkshire, and the wife of William Ellice (1816-1892) whom she married in 1847. She was a childhood friend of Princess Victoria with whom she was taken to play aged six and told by the young princess that she could not play with her toys and was not to address her by her christian name. She was one the Queen’s bridesmaids, the last survivor of the group, and wrote about it in the Cornhill Magazine of June 1897.

Jane was actively involved in the temperance movement from the mid-1850s and chaired many meetings in London and elsewhere on the subject and was President of the Faringdon, Berkshire branch of the British Women’s Temperance Association. In 1887 Jane wrote a book titled ‘The shadow of a coming danger to the cause of temperance from the celebration of the Jubilee of Queen Victoria’ which highlighted the social problems caused by alcohol.

There is a portrait of her after John Hayter in the Royal Collection and a portrait of Jane as a young girl was illustrated in the 23 June 1897 issue of 'The Sketch'.