Partner Rupert Brooke
Queer Places:
Greenoge, 40 Swakeleys Rd, Ickenham, Uxbridge UB10 8BE, UK
Hon.
Noël Olivier Richards (25 December 1892 – 11 April 1969) was an English medical
doctor who
is now best known for her relationship with the poet Rupert
Brooke. She was born on Christmas Day 1892, the daughter of Sydney
Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier and Margaret Cox. A cousin was the actor Sir Laurence
Olivier.[2]
She attended Bedales
School in Petersfield, Hampshire.[3]
She met the poet Rupert Brooke at a supper party in May 1907, prior to a meeting of the Cambridge Fabians which her father had been invited to address.[4] She was fifteen and he was twenty. He was captivated by the shy intelligent schoolgirl and began to bombard her with letters, initiating a correspondence that was to last until his death in 1915.[5] Some of Brooke's early poems, such as "The Hill", were written about and for his first love, Noël Olivier. Up to the time of her death in April 1969, she steadfastly refused publication of the letters which Brooke had written to her.[4]
She graduated with the degrees of Bachelor of Surgery (BS) and Doctor of Medicine (MD). She was registered as a Member of the Royal College of Physicians, (MRCP) and the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS).[2] On 29 April 1927, at a clinical meeting held at the Victoria Hospital for Children, in a section for the study of disease in children, she presented a paper entitled "A Case of Acute Lymphatic Leukæmia".[6]
She married William Arthur Richards, son of Robert Richards, on 21 December 1920.[2] Between 1924 and 1940 they had five children: Benedict, Angela (later Harris), Virginia, Tazza and Julia. Angela Harris' daughter Pippa Harris, edited Noël Olivier's correspondence with Brooke.[7] Her husband graduated with the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine (MB) and Bachelor of Surgery (BS). He was invested as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS). He was also registered as a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians.[2] She lived in Ickenham, Middlesex, England.[2]
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Noël Olivier; Maitland Radford; Virginia Woolf; Rupert Brooke
My published books:
