Helen Margaret Kippax was born in London and moved to Sheffield when she was eight years old. She studied Institutional Management at Sheffield Polytechnic. After which, she worked as Home Help Organiser and Homes Advisor at Sheffield, West Riding and Rotherham and in 1978 decided to stopped to raise her three children. She returned to education in 1997 and studied fine arts before running and owning an art gallery in Derbyshire. She began the project of co-creating Freeman College with the Founder and Director, Aonghus Gordon, in May 2004 and has continued to develop Freeman College ever since.