Susan Jellicoe (christened Ursula but known as Susan or Sue) was born in Liverpool on 30 June 1907, the third child of Margaret "Daisy" Ellis (née Dixon; 1879–1964) and Sir Bernard Pares, KBE (1867–1949), a historian and academic known for his work on Russia.
[2] During the war she served in the Ministry of Information department that countered enemy propaganda, working on the analysis of aerial reconnaissance photography.
[2] From 1945, she worked with her husband, designing planting schemes and taking the photographs for his architectural practice.
She was also co-author of The Oxford Companion to Gardens with Geoffrey Jellicoe, Patrick Goode and Michael Lancaster (1986).
With Dame Sylvia Crowe and Sheila Haywood, she contributed research and photographs to The Gardens of Mughal India: A History and a Guide (1972).