Olive Willis

[2] In 1907, with her friend Alice Carver as a non-teaching partner, Willis founded a new girls' boarding school called Downe House.

One of Willis's early pupils was the Anglo-Irish girl Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973), who became a significant novelist, and Audrey Richards (1899–1984), later a social anthropologist, was her exact contemporary.

Other pupils included the sculptor Betty Rea (1904–1965), writers Aletha Hayter (1911–2006) and Priscilla Napier (1908–1998), the poet Anne Ridler (1912–2001), the philosopher Mary Scrutton, the archaeologist Aileen Fox (1907–2005), and the musician Evelyn Rothwell (1911–2008).

[2][5] In December 1921, with the help of an uncle and with a loan from two parents of girls at the school, Willis bought The Cloisters, Cold Ash, Berkshire, with 60 acres (24 ha), for £11,976.

One employee, the eccentric Maria Nickel, was her chauffeur, handyman, architect and engineer, and slept in her bathroom.

This led to her chosen successor moving to another school, and Willis decided to divide her time between Hill House and a second home at 38 Tedworth Square in Chelsea.

She kept up with old pupils and continued her interests in the Bermondsey Time and Talents Settlement and in the Girl Guides movement.

[2] In 1964, after living nearly twenty years in retirement, Willis died from a perforated duodenal ulcer at the age of 86 at her London home.