Lizzie Kate Duncombe was born on 14 March 1878 in Amptill, Bedfordshire where her father George was a farmer, and later a farm bailiff. She was baptised on 19 May at Marston Moretaine. She had two brothers and three sisters, their mother being Elizabeth Sewell Duncombe nee Draycott.
Whilst Lizzie's elder brother Frederick became a farm bailiff and her younger brother George first became a butcher and then a farmer in Wolfhamcote, the girls in the family had fewer opportunities for independence. Two of Lizzie's sisters were still at home by the time of the 1911 census; another sister, Edith, had been working as a governess since at least 1901, at the home of William Howlett Grimes, in Long Itchington.
The Grimes family were prominent farmers in Warwickshire, occupying more than seven farms and therefore being important employers. Two of William Howlett Grimes' sons, Frank and Alfred, are buried at Stoneleigh, Frank at
B5.2 and Alfred at
B4.4. Their sister Mary Murcott Hollick is buried at
B5.3. It is no surprise, therefore, to find that although Lizzie had worked as a domestic servant for the farming Skelton family in Binley for at least ten years at the start of the twentieth century, by 1939 she was working as a housekeeper for Frank Grimes and his aforementioned siblings at the Dale House, Stoneleigh. The connection must have been through her sister Edith, who had continued to work for the Grimes family at Long Itchington until her death in 1936.
Lizzie died on 16 March 1947 at 1, Warwick Road, Leamington, though her probate records her as being "of the Dale House". Her executor was her only surviving sister, Florence.