Florence Welch

Florence Leontine Mary Welch (born 28 August 1986) is an English singer. She is the lead vocalist and primary songwriter of the indie rock band Florence and the Machine. The band's debut studio album, Lungs (2009), topped the UK Albums Chart and won the Brit Award for Best British Album. Their next five albums also achieved chart success. In 2018, Welch released a book titled Useless Magic, a collection of lyrics and poems written by her, along with illustrations.

Florence Leontine Mary Welch was born on 28 August 1986 in Camberwell, London, England, to Nick Russell Welch, an advertising executive and Evelyn Welch (née Samuels), an academic originally from the United States. Through her mother, Welch has both British and American citizenship. Her maternal grandfather was lawyer and coal magnate John S. Samuels III. Florence was raised as a Catholic.

Welch is the niece of satirist Craig Brown via Brown's wife and Welch's aunt, Frances Welch, and granddaughter of Colin Welch, former deputy editor of The Daily Telegraph and former Daily Mail parliamentary sketchwriter. Welch's maternal uncle is actor and filmmaker John Stockwell. She has a younger sister, Grace, who inspired Welch's song of the same name. Welch also has a younger brother named J.J. Welch's parents divorced when she was 13, and her mother eventually married their next-door neighbour, Peter Openshaw. As a result of the marriage, Welch has three step-siblings: Maddie, Sam, and John. Through her father, Welch also has a stepbrother named Nick. When Welch was 14, her maternal grandmother, who had bipolar disorder, died from suicide by jumping from her New York apartment.

During her youth, Welch was encouraged by her Scottish paternal grandmother, Cybil (née Russell), to pursue her performing and singing talents. Welch's deceased grandmothers inspired numerous songs on Florence and the Machine's debut album Lungs (2009). In her youth, Welch also sang at family weddings and funerals. Aged ten, she performed the song of Yum-Yum ("The sun whose rays are all ablaze") from The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan at Colin Welch's memorial service.

In Florence and the Machine's 2018 single "Hunger", she opened up for the first time about an eating disorder she had as a teenager. She has also spoken of being a highly imaginative and fearful child.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.