Background
She was the daughter of Sydney Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier and Margaret Cox. 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.
She was the daughter of Sydney Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier and Margaret Cox. 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.
She attended Bedales School in Petersfield, Hampshire.
Honorary A cousin was the actor Laurence Olivier. 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 which was to last until his death in 1915.
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. She graduated with the degrees of Bachelor of Surgery (Bachelor of Science) and Doctor of Medicine (Doctor of Medicine).
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.
She was registered as a Member of the Royal College of Physicians, (Membership of the Royal College of Physicians) and the Royal College of Surgeons (Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons).