Dame Flora McKenzie Robson (28 March 1902 – 7 July 1984) was an English actress and star of the theatrical stage and cinema, particularly renowned for her performances in plays demanding dramatic and emotional intensity.

[6] Her father was a ship's engineer who moved from Wallsend near Newcastle to Palmers Green in 1907 and Southgate in 1910, both in north London, and later to Welwyn Garden City.

[9] By the 1930s she was appearing in several prominent films both in the UK and in Hollywood, alongside such stars as Laurence Olivier, Paul Muni and George Raft.

[13] After the Second World War, demonstrating her range, she appeared in Holiday Camp (1947), the first of a series of films which featured the very ordinary Huggett family; as Sister Philippa in Black Narcissus (1947); as a magistrate in Good-Time Girl (1948); as a prospective Labour MP in Frieda (1947); and in the costume melodrama Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948).

[14] Her other film roles included the Empress Dowager Cixi in 55 Days at Peking (1963), Miss Milchrest in Murder at the Gallop (1963), the Queen of Hearts in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972), and Livia in the aborted I, Claudius in 1937.

[15] She struggled to find a footing in the theatre after she graduated from RADA with a bronze medal since she lacked the conventional good looks which were then an absolute requisite for actresses in dramatic roles.

[16] Unable to secure any acting engagements, she gave up the stage at the age of 23, and she took up work as a welfare officer in the Nabisco shredded wheat factory in Welwyn Garden City.

[22] She continued her acting career late into life, though not on the West End stage, from which she retired at the age of 67, often for American television films, including a lavish production of A Tale of Two Cities (in which she played Miss Pross).

[31] There is a plaque on the house in Wykeham Terrace, Dyke Road, Brighton, and also one in the doorway of St Nicholas's Church, of which Flora Robson was a great supporter.

[34] In 1996, the British Film Institute erected a plaque at number 14 Marine Gardens, location of Flora Robson's other home in Brighton, where she lived from 1961 to 1976.