Rose Mead was born in Bury St Edmunds on 4 December 1867. She spent most of her life in Bury St Edmunds; although she studied at the Lincoln School of Art and the Westminster School of Art. Mead was a prolific artist despite nursing her father and mother through ill health. She was then able to study in Paris under Auguste-Joseph Delecluse.

In later life she visited the Newlyn School of artists, Cornwall and the south of France.

Mead earned her living through her art and was exhibited in Paris and the Royal Academy.

She died in her house on Crown Street in March 1946 at the age of 78.