Florence's father, Evelyn Shuckburgh Litt. D., a parson's son, was a member of a Warwickshire family resident at the village of Shuckburgh since before the Conquest. Scholar, then fellow of Emmanuel, Cambridge, he had to resign his fellowship on marriage under the old statutes, but returned as Librarian after a spell and schoolmastering at Eton and made a deserved reputation as a prolific writer on classical subjects. He was a staunch advocate of women's suffrage, and a founding governor of Newnham College.

Florence showed early musical talent, and aspired to enter the R.C.M., where her fine high soprano voice could have received training, but was discouraged by her family. She met Edward Wadsworth Lidderdale on New Year's Eve, 1908 in Lenzerheide, Switzerland at a winter sports party, succumbed to appendicitis in the following year, and accepted his proposal the day before she left the hospital. She was a fluent German speaker, and kept up her interests into old age, often singing to the accompaniment of her daughter.

Reprinted from: Lidderdale, Halliday Adair, The Descendants of John Lidderdale 1783-1845, 1988 unpublished manuscript.