Florence Henrietta Darwin

Florence Henrietta, Lady Darwin, (née Fisher, 1864 – 5 March 1920), was an English playwright.

Florence Henrietta Fisher was born in Kensington, London, the daughter of Herbert William Fisher (1826–1903), author of Considerations on the Origin of the American War and his wife Mary Louisa Jackson (1841–1916). Florence's brother was the MP Herbert Fisher and her sister Adeline Maria Fisher was the first wife of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Lady Darwin was also a first cousin of writer Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell.

She married first Frederic William Maitland (1850–1906), jurist and historian, and they had two daughters Ermengard and Fredegond. Fredegond was a poet who married the economist Gerald Frank Shove.

On 3 March 1913 Florence became the third wife of Sir Francis Darwin, the twice-widowed botanist son of Charles Darwin. He was also a first cousin once removed (twice over) of her sister's husband Ralph Vaughan Williams, the second Josiah Wedgwood and his wife, Elizabeth, being their shared ancestor in one way and Robert Darwin and his wife, Susannah, on the other way. There were no children from this marriage.

Posthumously published were Six Plays (1921), including the plays The New Year, The Seeds of Love, Princess Royal, My Man John, Bushes and Briars and The Lover's Tasks. A book called Green Broom was published in 1923.

She is buried at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, where her second husband Sir Francis Darwin is also buried.

As a child she posed for portraits by photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.

Famous quotes containing the words henrietta and/or darwin:

    I am succeeding quite well in my work and the future looks well. What special mission is God preparing me for? Cutting off all earthly ties and isolating me as it were.
    —Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)

    Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of the watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.
    Richard Dawkins (b. 1941)