Brynhild Olivier

The first picture of Brynhild Olivier on the web

Although I’ve kicked off various articles in Wikipedia including the ones on User-Generated Content (in 2005 when UGC was still quite new and shiny) and on Bryn’s sister Daphne, I’m having a bit of trouble with the Wikinazis with this one so I’ll just stick it here for now and the self-appointed UGC You Next Tuesdays can spend their time on some other self-important pedantry. In the meantime the upside of this article is that I’ve met two charming, very interesting women through it – a novelist and a movie producer, the latter a direct descendant of Bryn.

”’Brynhild Olivier”’ (1887 – 13th January 1935, known as Bryn) was the second daughter of [[Sydney Haldane Olivier]], 1st Baron Olivier, and Margaret Cox; she was sister of Margery (1886-1974), Daphne (1889-1950) and [[Noel Olivier|Noel]] (1893-1969). She was a member of [[Rupert Brooke]]’s circle before the First World War and associated with the [[Bloomsbury Group]]. She was a prominent member of the group of young, socialist youth dubbed ‘the Neo-Pagans’ by [[Virginia Woolf]] and as such significantly influenced the development of Brooke.

She was usually the manager of the Neo-Pagan camps where the circle gathered for outdoor pursuits like climbing, bathing and hiking. Campers included the likes of [[Lytton Strachey]], [[John Maynard Keynes]], [[Geoffrey Keynes]] and [[Gerald Shove]]. The camp at Clifford Bridge in Dartmoor in August 1911 was referred to as ‘Bloomsbury under canvas’.

Although Brooke was in love with herPaul Delany. ”The Neo-Pagans – Friendship and Love in the Rupert Brooke Circle”. (1987 Macmillan London) p.173., she ended up marrying art historian [[A. E. Popham]] (Arthur Ewart Hugh Popham, known as Hugh) in 1912 (becoming Brynhild Popham). Hugh Popham was a friend of Rupert Brooke and worked in the Prints Department of the British Museum.[http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0272%2FPP%2FPOP The Papers of Hugh and Brynhild (Olivier) Popham]They were divorced in 1924. She married F. R. N. Sherrard in 1924 (becoming Brynhild Sherrard).[http://thepeerage.com/p24033.htm The Peerage]

She was the mother of Anne Olivier Popham, who became the wife of art historian and writer [[Quentin Bell]]. She was also the mother of the poet, translator and theologian [[Philip Sherrard|Philip Owen Arnould Sherrard]] (born 23 September 1922, Oxford). She had six children in all – three with each husband. Her first child Hugh Anthony was born in March 1914, followed by daughter Anne Olivier and son Tristram.

Brynhild was the first of the four Olivier sisters the poet Rupert Brooke met[http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mXu7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=Brynhild+Olivier&source=bl&ots=na0q3BPgWR&sig=Ix1Rk9UezcB7Nv1bofbRiWqc-zk&hl=en&ei=cBjsTYXeBs6DhQej4sm6Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFwQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=Brynhild%20Olivier&f=false Caesar, Adrian. ”Taking it like a man: suffering, sexuality, and the war poets.”(1993 Manchester University Press) p.25.]. Although she was reputedly the most beautiful, it was her sister Noel Olivier for whom Brooke fell. [[Jacques Raverat]] described her as having ‘the startled beauty of a nymph taken by surprise’.

Brynhild trained as a jeweller. She was first cousin of the actor [[Laurence Olivier]].

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*Delany, Paul. ”The Neo-Pagans – Friendship and Love in the Rupert Brooke Circle.” Macmillan. London. 1987. ISBN 0-333-44572-4 (hc)
*Caesar, Adrian. ”Taking it like a man: suffering, sexuality, and the war poets.” Manchester University Press. Manchester. 1993. ISBN 0-7190-3834-0

==External links==
*[http://auden.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/auden/individual.php?pid=I11262&ged=auden-bicknell.ged W.H. Auden – ‘Family Ghosts’]
*[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=272-misc30&cid=28-3#28-3 Papers in the National Archives]