Early Life
Florence Beatrice Farr was born in Bickley, Kent, England (nowadays a suburb of London) in 1860, the youngest of the eight children of Mary Elizabeth Whittal and Dr. William Farr. She was named after nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale by her father, a physician and hygienist who was a friend and colleague of Nightingale's. Dr. Farr was known as an advocate of equal education and professional rights for women, who doubtlessly influenced his daughters' attitudes in their later lives.
Her family sent her to school at Cheltenham Ladies College in 1873. One of her childhood friends was May Morris, the daughter of Jane Morris, the renowned Pre-Raphaelite artist's model, who introduced her to the artistic and intellectual circles of London society. Farr, May Morris and other friends posed for Sir Edward Burne-Jones' Pre-Raphaelite painting "The Golden Stairs" when she was 19 years old. The painting is exhibited at the Tate Gallery in London. From 1877 to 1880, Farr attended Queen's College, the first woman's college in England. After leaving college, she took a teaching position, but soon her aspirations turned to theatre.
Read more about this topic: Florence Farr
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Parents ... are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfil the promise of their early years.”
—Anthony Powell (b. 1905)
“It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm bounds and cottage lights. For my own part, but for the geographers, I should hardly have known how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Harbor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)