Born Frances Crofts Darwin, Cornford grew up in Cambridge and was a granddaughter of Charles Darwin. Her early verse was widely popular attracting positive reviews, but attention waned thereafter.  She was awarded the Queen’s Medal for Poetry (1959). 

She published several books of verse, The Holtbury Idyll (1908), Poems (1910), Spring Morning (1915), Autumn Midnight (1923), Different Days(1928) and Mountains and Molehills (1935).  A Collected Poems (1954) was a Poetry Book Society choice.  She produced three works in translation. 

A selected works was published by Enitharmon Books with an introduction by Dr Jane Dowson, Reader in Twentieth-Century Literature at De Montfort University, and includes a memoir written by Dr Hugh Cornford, youngest son of Frances, exploring her friendships and family relationships, providing a portrait of a warm, courageous, and complex personality.