According to the 1891 and 1901 Censuses, Dorothy Worden was born in Newcastle on Tyne, Northumberland, however it has not been possible as yet to trace her family located there, and it may be that they lived there only briefly. One Worden family, the head being a photographer, from Camborne, Cornwall had briefly re-located to Newcastle, and it may be that Dorothy had some Cornish family, but this is conjecture only at present.

In 1891 the artist, age 23, is listed as lodging in Hammersmith, London. By 1893 she had become a member of the St Ives Arts Club (STIAC) and her paintings, some of which were St Ives subjects, were being exhibited at the RCPS (1893,1894 and 1896), the RBA and the County Fisheries Exhibition at Truro (1893).

In 1896, Dorothy Worden married the artist William E OSBORN, who had also been working in St Ives, at Exeter, and it seems that the couple settled in a small village, Withycombe Raleigh, near Exmouth, which became his exhibiting address up until about 1901-2.  In 1901, Dorothy is recorded in the Census as a lodger with a slightly older couple in Ludlow, Herefordshire (now Shropshire). In 1902 Will Osborn also uses Ludlow as an exhibiting address for London shows of work.

Dorothy Osborn continued to paint after her marriage.  In the summer of 1905 she exhibited watercolours at the Ryder Gallery, London and these were positively reviewed in The Studio (1905). She remarried in January 1907, after her first husband's death the previous year, to Commander Harold Ernest Browne RN of Devon.