Florence Eva Simpson

Florence Eva Simpson (1865–1923), who wrote under the name of Elva Lorence, was a popular British composer and writer.

Many of her songs set poems written and published by her sister Katherine Ashton Simpson, who became a well-known writer and artist.

[2] By the mid-1890s Simpson was widely known and acclaimed for her songs, which were popular and extensively performed by amateur and professional singers.

[3] The dramatic contralto Clara Butt regularly sang Simpson's song Old Donald's Lament,[4] while American contralto Antoinette Sterling had Simpson's songs My ein Countrie and There is Rest is for the Weary in her repertoire.

She performed There is Rest is for the Weary in a concert at Prince's Hall on Piccadilly, London, in May 1894, with the audience demanding an encoure.

[8][9] Another musical collaborator on both the operettas was George Kennedy Chrystie, Simpson's husband.

[6] Chrystie was a published composer in his own right,[10] writing settings of a number of poems including those by his sister-in-law Katherine Ashton Simpson.

[12] Simpson also published a number of short stories as well as plays, poetry and books.

An oil painting of Henry Read Pridgeon (1817–1886), District Registrar of Honiton, Devon, signed 'Eva Simpson' and with the monogram 'FES', is attributed to her.

[16] On her mother's side, she was part of an old north country family, being a great-great-granddaughter of Lord Lever of Alkrington Hall.

Her youngest sister, Alice Pickering (1860–1939), became a tennis player who twice reached the final of the Wimbledon Championship.

[18][19] Following her marriage to George Kennedy Christie, she lived in Darlington in County Durham until her death in 1923.