Florence Henniker

Florence Henniker was a British poet and novelist.

Florence Ellen Hungerford Milnes was born in December 1855 in London. The daughter of Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, and his wife, the former Annabella Hungerford Crewe, she was raised in luxury. She was named in memory of her father's frustrated love affair with the Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale, a family friend who also was her godmother. Due to her father's status in Middlesex County, Florence Milnes was considered to be an aristocrat. She was educated at home with her elder sister Amicia at the family seat at Fryston Hall in Yorkshire and at Torquay where she, her Amicia and their brother Robert stayed with her father's aunts Jane, Louisa and Caroline Milnes. As a young woman Florence also spent time in Paris with her governess Matilda Allen, where she received singing lessons and attended lectures at the Sorbonne.

In 1882, she married a British army officer, Arthur Henry Henniker-Major (1855-1912) from Suffolk. In 1901, Henniker specified on the census record that she "lived on her own means." In 1911, she resided at 13 Stratford Place, West in St. Marylebone, London with her husband and eight servants. In 1919, she was a registered voter in the City of Westminster.

She died in St. Mark on North Andley Street in 1923. Her grave is located at St. Mary Magdalene, Thornham Magna.