Queer Places:
20 The Cl, Salisbury SP1 2EB, UK
Fitz House, Teffont Magna, Salisbury SP3 5QS, UK
Daye House, Quidhampton, Salisbury SP2 8PH, UK
Wilton House, Wilton, Salisbury SP2 0BJ, UK
University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 3PA
St Mary and St Nicholas' Church, 27A West St, Wilton, Salisbury SP2 0DL, UK
Edith
Maud Olivier MBE (31 December 1872 – 10 May 1948) was an English writer, also
noted for acting as hostess to a circle of well-known writers, artists, and
composers in her native Wiltshire. Rupert Brooke was closer to a group of
friends, who Virginia Woolf
called the ‘neo-pagans’, possibly due to their love of the outdoors. This
group included Rupert Brooke,
Katherine Cox, the Olivier sisters (Brynhild
Olivier and Edith Olivier),
Jacques and
Gwen Raverat,
Frances Cornford and
Justin
Brooke. Despite sharing the same surname, Justin Brooke was not a relative of
Rupert’s.
Olivier was born in Wilton, of Huguenot stock, her father being Canon of
Wilton, and her mother the daughter of a bishop.[1]
She was one of ten children.[2]
After receiving schooling at home, Olivier went up to St Hugh's College,
Oxford in 1895, but completed only four terms before leaving because of
asthma.[1]
She was related to the actor
Laurence
Olivier through her paternal grandfather, Henry Stephen Olivier, who,
through one of his other sons, was the actor's great grandfather.[1]
Until his death in 1919 her life was dominated by her father,[1]
who was both autocratic and conservative.[2]
She was an adherent of the Anglican Church and served on the Women's Diocesan
Council.[1]
Olivier also undertook activities in the Conservative Party, and Women's
Institute. In 1916, at the behest of the Wiltshire county agricultural
committee, Olivier helped form the Women's Land Army in Wiltshire, for which
she was rewarded in 1920 with an MBE.[1]
When she was elected to Wilton Town Council in 1934, she became the first
woman to serve on the council, and was later mayor from 1938 to 1941.[1]
As mayoress it was her responsibility to house the children and mothers of
babies evacuated from London. Southern Command was based at Wilton and every
bedroom in her house was occupied by a lodger. She describes this in Night
Thoughts of a Country Landlady humorously illustrated by her close friend,
the artist Rex Whistler. Her public service during the Second World War
included the presidency of the local St John Ambulance Brigade.[1]
Born at Wilton Rectory, Edith grew up playing in and worshipping the
neighbouring house and gardens of Wilton House. George Lord Pembroke and his
wife Gety were childless and encouraged the young Olivier children to spend
time with them and to play with their nephews and nieces.[3]
When Edith's widower father Canon Dacres Olivier retired before the First
World War, she and her sister Mildred moved with him to No.20 in Salisbury's
Cathedral Close. Her father died the year the war ended, and after a short
spell renting at Fitz House, Teffont, the two 40 year old Olivier sisters
moved into the old dairy house (Daye House) on the Wilton estate in 1920. This
was at the request of childhood friend Reginald, Lord Pembroke, who had
inherited Wilton from his uncle in 1913.[4]
Wilton and Wiltshire were her lifelong passions.
“Of all the neighbours on whom I grew to rely more and more, Edith
Olivier was perhaps always the most cherished. So many of the young
writers, painters and poets came to her with problems about their work and
their lives and they knew that after she had listened intently to their
outpourings, her advice would be unprejudiced, wise and Christian.” –
Cecil Beaton[5]
In her nightly journal – missed only three times: when her brother Harold
was killed fighting in 1914, her sister Mildred died from breast cancer in
1923 and her closest friend Rex
Whistler was killed jumping from his tank in 1944 – Edith recorded a way
of life and a generation that vanished with the outbreak of the second world
war. She describes the ‘Bright Young Things’ on the Earl of Pembroke's estate
at Wilton and at nearby Ashcombe, Cecil Beaton's house, first discovered by
Edith. She writes of her close friendships with neighbours
Stephen Tennant, and his mother,
Pamela, wife of Sir Edward Grey, the poet Sir Henry Newbolt, and painters
Henry Lamb and Augustus John. Her book on her beloved Wiltshire in the County
Book series was published posthumously by her niece Miss Rosemary Olivier who
continued to live at the Daye House at the request of the Pembrokes, and
became Mayor of Wilton also.
It was after Mildred died in 1923 that she started to engage a broader
social circle.[1]
It was then that she formed a profound friendship with Rex Whistler[2]
and acted as a frequent hostess to an elite, artistic, and social set which
included Cecil Beaton,
Siegfried Sassoon,
William
Walton, and
Osbert Sitwell.[1][2]
She describes them vividly in her journals:[6]
Cecil Beaton: ‘a marble face and voice’
John Betjeman: ‘cleaner than I expected… loves Georgian churches’
Lady Diana Cooper: ‘I have never seen anyone else really look what I think
Helen of Troy must have looked’
Siegfried Sassoon: ‘such fun to tell things to. Laughs so utterly’’
Edith Sitwell: ‘bitter against the world
in general, and very comprehending towards individuals when she knows about
them’
Stephen Tennant: ‘dazzling in his inspired wit and vision’
William Walton: ‘a very domestic man, ready to help in all household
emergencies’
Rex Whistler: ‘a reincarnation of Breughel’[7]
Her first novel, The Love Child was published in 1927, and was
followed by further novels, biographies, including one of Alexander Cruden,
and the autobiographical Without Knowing Mr Walkley.[1]
Olivier died in 1948, after suffering three strokes, and was interred in
Wilton churchyard.[1]
My published books:
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Olivier