Alice Thompson, the daughter of Thomas James and Christiana Weller Thompson was born in Barnes, London, on 11th October 1847. Her sister was the artist, Elizabeth Butler. Her father was a friend of Charles Dickens, and Meynell later suggested that Dickens was romantically interested in her mother,

Alice's first book of poems, Preludes, was published in 1875. Two years later she married the journalist, Wilfrid Meynell (1852-1948). A Roman Catholic, Meynell had eight children between 1879 and 1891.

Alice and her husband co-edited several magazines including The Pen (1880-1881), The Weekly Register (1881-1895) and Merry England (1883-1895). From 1894 she contributed a weekly column to the Pall Mall Gazette. Books by her included The Rhythm of Life (1893), Poems (1893), Holman Hunt (1893), The Colour of Life (1896), The Children (1897), The Spirit of Place (1899) and John Ruskin (1900).

Meynell was a member of the National Union of Suffrage Societies and the Catholic Women's Suffrage Society but was critical of the militant methods used by the Women's Social and Political Union. Maynel wrote: "'A Catholic suffragist woman is a graver suffragist on graver grounds and with weightier reasons than any other suffragist in England.... Surely England has endured too long what is not only immodest but profoundly immoral."

In 1908 the famous playwright, Cicely Hamilton, formed the Women Writers Suffrage League (WWSL). The WWSL stated that its object was "to obtain the vote for women on the same terms as it is or may be granted to men. Its methods are those proper to writers - the use of the pen." Meynell was one of the first women to join the WWSL. Other members included Beatrice Harraden, Elizabeth Robins, Charlotte Despard, Margaret Nevinson, Evelyn Sharp and Marie Belloc Lowndes.

In later years Meynell concentrated on writing poetry. She was twice considered for the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, on the 1892 death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson and in 1913 to replace Alfred Austin. However, the idea was rejected.

Alice Meynell died on 27th November 1922.