She was born at Ripton-Kings, Huntingdonshire, to Dorothy Sherard (herself daughter of Philip Sherard, 2nd Earl of Harborough) and James Torkington (a Church of England vicar) She grew up in Huntingdonshire and was probably educated at home.
When they were first married he was lecturing at Cambridge, and she developed a reputation in university circles. Her writing often took the form of letters, signed with the nom de plume "Priscilla", such as the series she wrote to the London Chronicle (1772-1774) during the movement of 1771 to abolish university and clerical subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. After she was widowed in 1786, she remained in London and continued to be politically active.
Her writing appeared in the London Chronicle, the Whitehall Evening Post and the Monthly Repository, as well as in pamphlets and tracts.
Often attacked for her politics, she has the distinction of having been mentioned by Richard Polwhele in The Unsex"d Females. Education H. C. G. Education Education H. C. G.
“"A Great Politicianess": Ann Jebb, rational dissent and politics in late eighteenth-century Britain”, Women"s History Review, 17:5 (2008), pp. John Jebb and the Enlightenment Origins of British Radicalism.
