LUFF, Florence Louisa
Florence Louisa Luff was born at Ipswich in 1852 and baptised on 5 January 1853, daughter of Henry Luff (8 October 1818-1 August 1888), a substantial builder who employed 42 people, and his wife Rose née Mann (1820-2 February 1906), who married at Ipswich on 13 March 1850. In 1861, Florence was an 8-year-old, living at 2 Neale Street, Ipswich, with her parents, 42-year-old Henry and 40-year-old Rose, with a sibling sister newly born Rose Ada, but by 1871 they had moved to Paget Road, Ipswich. Florence studied at the Ipswich School of Art, passing her examinations in 1870. As Miss F. Luff, she exhibited at the Ipswich Fine Art Club from Bullingdon Road, Oxford in 1881, a watercolour 'Cottage, Lower Arboretum' when Florence's parents were then living at 41 Bullingdon Road, Oxford. At that time Florence was a 28-year-old governess in the home of William H. Chichester, his wife and four children at Grenofen House, Whitechurch, Tavistock, Devon, who retained six other servants. By 1888, when her father Henry died, the family were living at Spring Bank, Dartmouth, Devon. In 1891 Florence was a 38-year-old schoolteacher, living at South Town, St Petrox, Totnes, Devon with her 71-year-old widowed mother, and 30-year-old sister Rose, a governess, and two boarders and a servant and by 1911, Florence was a 58-year-old boarding housekeeper, at Dendy Road, Paignton, Devon. Florence Louisa Luff died at 1 Park Crescent, Paignton on 17 April 1920, she was unmarried.