Francesca Stafford was a famous British writer, painter and actress who is best known for her long period of success in the theater. She is said to have once faked her own death so that her husband could get the estate they jointly controlled from her. Francesca Stafford had many affairs with men in high society, while she continued to paint, act, and write. One of the more famous of her paintings is titled The Hours of Wonder and was produced around the same time as her marriage to Captain George Gordon Lane.
Francesca Stafford was born into a family of four children, who were quite well off. Her father was a successful businessman who also served as a cabinet member of parliament for the Protectorate of Ireland during the reign of Queen Victoria. Her mother, nicknamed ‘Frigida’, worked as a nanny in order to support the family. As a child Francesca enjoyed playing with the other children but it was her interest in art that would take her to a career in which she would display much of her work up until her death at the age of eighty. This career was the subject of her best known painting entitled Beauty and the Beast.
Francesca Stafford was listed as a Scottish Nationality when she was in her late thirties. It is very possible that this could have been the reason for her faked death in order to hide the identity of the true owner of the fortune that she accumulated during her lifetime. It is possible that Francesca may have been born in Ireland and that her true nationality was Irish. If this is the case, then her nationality would include Irish, Scottish and English.