Frances Cornford

Frances Cornford (born March 30, 1886, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England—died August 19, 1960, Cambridge) was an English poet, perhaps known chiefly, and unfairly, for the sadly comic poem “To a Fat Lady Seen from a Train” (“O fat white woman whom nobody loves, / Why do you walk through the fields in gloves…”).

A granddaughter of Charles Darwin, she was educated at home. Her first book of poems, which contained the “Fat Lady” verse, was published in 1910. Later volumes include Spring Morning (1915), Autumn Midnight (1923), Different Days (1928), Mountains and Molehills (1934), and Travelling Home (1948). Cornford’s Collected Poems appeared in 1954, and she was awarded the Queen’s Medal for Poetry in 1959. Many of her poems, often very short, express her deep love for Cambridge and its traditions.