Daphne Olivier studied medieval and modern languages at Newnham College, Cambridge and, together with her sisters Bryn and Noël, belonged to the social circle that gathered around Rupert Brooke: a group that Virginia Woolf named the Neo-Pagans.[2] Olivier was also a friend of John Maynard Keynes.[3] Upon graduating in 1913, she became a teacher. Some years later, she developed an interest in the anthroposophical and educational work of Rudolf Steiner; according to Owen Barfield, she possibly attended an educational conference that Steiner held in Stuttgart in 1922. That same year she met both Barfield and his close friend Cecil Harwood at a concert tour of the English Folk Dance Society, where she sang and played the fiddle. It was through her that they both became acquainted with anthroposophy.[4]
Olivier approached Steiner for support in starting a Waldorf School in England, gathered a group of three other women and, on being advised by Steiner to include also a male teacher, asked her friend Harwood to join. The school, called at the time "The New School" was founded in 1925 in South London. It later moved to Forest Row in East Sussex and was renamed Michael Hall.[5] She and Harwood were married on 14 August 1925, and subsequently had five children.[1] Besides her work as a teacher, Daphne translated a number of Steiner's works into English.
Harwood was a friend of C.S. Lewis and Barfield, a fellow follower of Steiner. Lewis was a frequent visitor to the couple's home in London and became godfather to their son Laurence. She died in 1950 of cancer.
