Florence Henniker born Florence Hungerford Milnes (December 1855 – 4 April 1923) was a British aristocrat, poet and novelist. She was also an animal rights activist and anti-vivisectionist.
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Biography
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. She grew up in Fryston Hall, Yorkshire and 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 sister Amicia and their brother Robert stayed with her father's aunts Jane, Louisa and Caroline Milnes. The social circle of her father extended to a number of writers who she knew in her formative years including William Makepeace Thackeray, Algernon Charles Swinburne. 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.