Florence Henrietta Fisher was born at 3, Onslow Square, London, in the year 1864; but to those of a younger generation it seemed that nearly the whole of her youth had been spent in the New Forest, so largely did it figure in her stories of the past. It was at Whitley Ridge, Brockenhurst, that her earliest plays were written, and many marvellous characters created; their names still live. It was there that she became a very good violin player, as well as a musician in a wider sense. It was in Brockenhurst Church that, in 1886, she married Frederic William Maitland, later Downing professor of the laws of England.

Mr. and Mrs. Maitland lived in Cambridge; for the first two years at Brookside, and afterwards in the West Lodge of Downing College.

Along with her love of music there had begun, and there continued a love of animals, and, from Moses, a dog of Brockenhurst days, there stretched down a long procession of dogs, cats, monkeys, foxes, moles, merecats, mongeese, bush cats and marmosets, accompanied by a variety of birds. If such a thing as a dumb animal has ever existed it certainly was not one of hers, for, besides what they were able to say for themselves, they spoke much through her. Not only were they able to recount all that had happened to them in past home or jungle, they were perfectly able to give advice in every situation and to join in every discussion. Neither were their pens less ready than their tongues, and many were the letters of flamboyant script and misspelt word that came forth from cage or basket.

Frederic William Maitland possessed a small property at Brookthorpe, Gloucestershire; and near this property, in a house in the village of Edge and at the top of the Horsepools hill, he and his wife and their two children spent most of their holidays. They were happy days. Animals increased in number and rejoiced in freedom, fairs were attended, dancing bears and bird carts came at intervals to the door, gipsies were delighted in and protected, and it was there that many friendships with country people were made. Several days a week would find Mrs. Maitland driving down to Brookthorpe in donkey or pony cart to see tenants, to enquire for or feed the sick, to visit the school, to advise and be advised in the many difficulties of human life. With a wonderful memory and power of reproducing that which she had heard, she brought back rare harvest from these expeditions. All through her days she was told more in a week than many people hear in a life-time.

After much illness, Professor Maitland was told that he must leave England, and in 1898 the Maitlands set sail to the island of Grand Canary; and it was there that they spent each winter, with the exception of one in Madeira, until Professor Maitland’s death in 1906. The beauty and warmth of the island were a joy to Mrs. Maitland, washing out all the difficulties of housekeeping and the labour of cooking. The day of hardest work still left her time to set forth, accompanied by a faithful one-legged hen, to seek the shade of chestnut or loquat tree, and there to write. The song of frogs rising from watery palm grove, the hot dusty scent of pepper tree, the cool scent of orange, the mountains sharp and black against the evening sky, the brightly coloured houses crowded to the brink of still brighter sea, were all things she loved, and their images remained with her always. She became an expert talker of what she called kitchen Spanish, and her store of country history increased greatly, for, from Candelaria, the washer-woman to Don Luis the grocer, she met no one who was not ready to tell her all the marvels that ever they knew.

In 1906 Frederic William Maitland landed on the island too ill to reach the house that Mrs. Maitland had gone out earlier to prepare for him. He was taken to an hotel in the city of Las Palmas, and there, on December the 19th, he died.

In the spring of 1907 Mrs. Maitland returned to England.

In 1909 she added on to a small farm house at Brookthorpe, and there she went to live. She was thus able to renew many friendships, and in some slight degree take up the life that had been so dear to her. It was during these last eleven years at Brookthorpe that she wrote all her plays dealing with country people; the first for a class of village children to whom she taught singing, the later ones in response to a growing demand not only from other Gloucestershire villages, but from village clubs and institutes scattered over a large part of England. She saw several of her plays acted by the Oakridge and the Sapperton players, and these performances and letters from other performers gave her great pleasure.

In 1913 she married Sir Francis Darwin. Their life at Brookthorpe was varied by months spent at his house in Cambridge. It was there that she died on March 5th, 1920.

During her last years she had much illness to contend with. Unable to play her violin, she turned to the spinet. She practised for hours, wrote plays, and attended to her house when many would have lain in their beds.

Her religion became of increasingly great comfort and interest to her, and it was in that light that she came, more and more, to look at all things.

In the minds of many who knew her in those years rose up the words: I have fought a good fight.

E. M.