Alice Mary Meadows White (née Smith) was born in London 19 May 1839, and died there 4 December 1884. She was a pupil of Sterndale Bennett and G.A. Macfarren. In November 1867 she was elected Female Professional Associate of the Philharmonic Society and in 1884 Hon. RAM.
She was a prolific composer of both large and small scale works. According to an obituary in The New Atheneum of 13 December 1884: „Her music is marked by elegance and grace…power and energy. Her forms were always clear and her ideas free from eccentricity; her sympathies were evidently with the classic rather than with the romantic School.“