Brooke Rupert - Fatal glamour: the life of Rupert Brooke

Fatal Glamour

THE LIFE OF RUPERT BROOKE

PAUL DELANY

McGill-Queens University Press 2015

ISBN 978-0-7735-4557-1 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-7735-8277-4 (ePDF)
ISBN 978-0-7735-8278-1 (ePUB)

Legal deposit first quarter 2015
Bibliothque nationale du Qubec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

McGill-Queens University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Delany, Paul, author
Fatal glamour : the life of Rupert Brooke / Paul Delany.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-0-7735-4557-1 (bound). ISBN 978-0-7735-8277-4 (ePDF).
ISBN 978-0-7735-8278-1 (ePUB)

1. Brooke, Rupert, 18871915. 2. Poets, English 20th century Biography. I. Title.

PR6003.R4Z628 2015821'.912c2014-907647-9

c2014-907648-7

My first debt is to those members of the Rupert Brooke generation, or their children, who have now passed away: Quentin Bell, Bob Best, Christopher Cornford, David Garnett, Richard Garnett, Catherine Gide, Sophie Gurney, Angela Harris, Sir Geoffrey Keynes, Cathleen Nesbitt, Frances Partridge, Dr Benedict Richards, and Mary Newbery Sturrock. For access to family archives I am specially grateful to Val Arnold-Forster, daughter-in-law of Ka Cox, and to Pippa Harris and Tamsin Majerus, granddaughters of Noel Olivier.

I thank those who provided invaluable insights through personal reminiscences, private documents, or other help: Val Arnold-Forster, Anne Olivier Bell, Michael Hastings, Elizabeth Hollingsworth, Lucilla Shand, Michael Holroyd, H.A. Popham, Sophia Popham, and Julia Rendall. Many others have added pieces to the story, whether in letters or conversation: Peter Ackroyd, Anna Anrep, Nicholas Barker, Lorna Beckett of the Rupert Brooke Society, Alan Bell, Justin Brooke, Keith Clements, Sophia Crawford, Jenny Dereham, Helen Duffy, George Gomori, Keith Hale, Dr Tony Harris, Paul Levy, Ann Radford MacEwan, Angus Macindoe, Perry Meisel, Howard Moseley, Lois Olivier, Peggy Packwood, Tristram Popham, David Pye, Mark Ramage, S.P. Rosenbaum, the Laird of Rothiemurchus, John Schroder, Frederick Schroder, Robert Skidelsky, David Steel, and James L. West III. For archival sources, I am specially indebted to Peter Monteith at the Modern Archive, Kings College, Cambridge.

Stephane Roumilhac provided a memorable lunch and tour of the Chteau de Prunoy, Yonne; Mr and Mrs J. Finlinson showed me their home, formerly The Champions, at Limpsfield; Mary Archer invited me to the Old Vicarage, Grantchester. The librarians of Rugby and Bedales, and the housemaster of School Field, Rugby, took me over their ground.

In Tahiti I should thank Mareva Poole at the Mairie de Teravao, Moorea; Tipari Gooding; John Taroanui of the Acadmie Tahitienne; and my partner in detective work, Colette Colligan.

For ideal surroundings in which to work, I am grateful for residencies at Clare Hall, Cambridge, and Playa Summer Lake, Oregon.

For permission to quote from copyright materials, I am indebted to the Trustees of the Rupert Brooke Estate, Jon Stallworthy, and Andrew Motion.

At Simon Fraser University, Dean John Craig gave financial support to my research. Helen Wussow helped with the Virginia Woolf connection. My agents, Georges Borchardt and Andrew Gordon, kept the book on course with their confidence and sound advice. Jonathan Crago and Joanne Muzak at McGill-Queens University Press recognised the need for speed.

In these times we are reminded constantly of the nightmare of 191418, and especially what it meant for British civilians and combatants alike. All living memory of those times has now gone, and it is disappearing daily for those who came after them in the Second World War. In memoriam Paul Lawton, 4th Battalion, Coldstream Guards, 194445.

Vancouver, British Columbia

October 2014

Mrs Brooke with Rupert (left) and Alfred, 1898. (Modern Archive, Kings College, Cambridge)

Hillbrow School, c. 1901. Mr Thomas Eden, the pedophile headmaster, at centre. Rupert in fourth row, second from right; James Strachey in third row, sixth from right. (Hillbrow School)

Rupert at Rugby School in 1903, hair still cut short. (National Portrait Gallery, London)

Rupert in the Rugby Cadet Corps, 1906, at age eighteen. The antelope badge belongs to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. (National Portrait Gallery)

School Field House, Rugby, autumn 1906 (detail). Denham Russell-Smith, fifth from right in top row. Alfred Brooke, second from right, top. Charles Lascelles may be below Denham to right, with broad collar. (Rugby School Archives)

Olivier sisters, c. 1912. From left: Margery, Brynhild, Daphne, Noel. (Private collection)

Brynhild Olivier, 1909. (George Bernard Shaw collection, London School of Economics)

Ka Cox as a Young Fabian a model for Mary Datchet in Virginia Woolfs Night and Day. (Private collection)

Camp at Clifford Bridge, Dartmoor, summer 1911. From left: Noel Olivier, Maitland Radford, Virginia Woolf in gypsy headscarf, Rupert. (National Portrait Gallery)

Noel Olivier at Rothiemurchus, 1913. (Private collection)

Justin Brooke in Bedales fashion, around 1914. (Private collection)

Lytton Strachey, 1913. (National Portrait Gallery)