The archive comprises Sydney Olivier's correspondence, financial, legal and official papers, and literary papers; correspondence and papers relating to Sydney Olivier: Letters and Selected Writings; Margaret Olivier's correspondence and financial and legal papers; family diaries, notebooks and news cuttings; photographs and printed ephemera.
Dates
- Creation: 1870s-1951
Extent
3.3 Linear metres (22 physical shelfmarks)
Language of Materials
- English
Preferred Citation
Oxford, Bodleian Libraries [followed by shelfmark and folio or page reference, e.g. MS. 5671/1].
Full range of shelfmarks:
MSS. 5671/1-22
Collection ID (for staff)
CMD ID 5671
Abstract
The archive of Sydney Olivier, first Baron Olivier, (1859-1943), civil servant, politician and author, and his family, particularly his wife Margaret (c.1862-1953).
Biographical / Historical
Sydney Haldane Olivier (1859-1943) was born in Colchester and educated at Tonbridge School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He had a career in the Colonial Service, particularly in the West Indies, and then as a politician, having joined the Fabian Society in 1885. He had great literary talent, writing poetry, plays, articles and books on subjects including philosophy, politics and history, as well as fiction.
Sydney Olivier married Margaret Cox (c.1862-1953) in 1885 and they had four daughters, Margery (1886-1974), Brynhild (1887-1935), Daphne (1889-1950) and Noel (1892-1969) who were noted for their progressive ideas and literary associations.
For further information see the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Deposited in the Bodleian Library in 1985 by Dr R.B.O. Richards, grandson of Sydney Olivier, and donated to the Library in 1996 by Mrs Virginia Allen, granddaughter of Sydney Olivier.
Bibliography
- Sydney Olivier: letters and selected writings edited with a memoir by Margaret Olivier; with some impressions by Bernard Shaw (Allen & Unwin, 1948)
- Noble Savages. The Olivier Sisters. Four Lives in Seven Fragments. Sarah Watling (Jonathan Cape, 2019)
- Title
- Catalogue of the Archive of Sydney Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier, and his family
- Status
- Published
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by Robert Brown, Jen Patterson and Lucy McCann
- Date
- 2020
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Bodleian Libraries Repository
Weston Library
Broad Street
Oxford OX1 3BG United Kingdom
specialcollections.enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk