Born in Birmingham in 1855 as Emma Solomon, the daughter of Henry Solomon (born 1831), a general dealer, and later a traveller in jewellery, and his wife Ellen (née Coley), in 1872 she married Thomas Hopkins in Birmingham and had a daughter, Ellen 'Nellie' (born c. 1876).
In 1886 she secured the British rights to Ivan Caryll's first theatre piece, Lily of Léoville, which she also presented at the Comedy Theatre and appeared in as Turlurette.