A writer, poet, and lyricist, Attenborough lived in Porthscatho.
Born in Sevenoaks, Kent, Attenborough was the daughter of an Independent minister. Her father accepted pastorate at Portscatho, and thereafter she contributed to the Royal Cornwall Gazette, Plymouth Weekly Mercury, and other local journals, especially Christian ones.
She returned to London in 1886 and began to write for Cassell’s Saturday Journal, under the nom de plume, Chrystabelle, as well as Christian World and many other journals. Although she appeared to stop publishing books of her poetry after 1902, she became a lyricist for song writers, including A Cantata or Operetta for Girls Voices: a Day in Roseland which was published in 1909.
In 1917, aged 50, she married Richard H. Stodden. Some of her lyrical works cite her name as Florence Hedley-Stodden. Florence was the recipient of her husbands assets in his will will, following his death on 25 July 1944. Both Richard and Florence Hedley-Stodden are buried at St. Gerrans Church graveyard in Gerrans, Cornwall.