contribution to India gave it a right to be there and that the native Indians were not ready for self-government. Privately, he believed that the problems of India could not be solved at that time or by a minority Labour government, and resolved to merely defend the status quo. In July 1924, he sided unsuccessfully with Wedgwood, Philip Snowden and J. H. Thomas in the Cabinet, opposing the promise of a loan to the Soviet Union, and was critical of MacDonald's decision to call an unnecessary election later that year. MacDonald did not give him an office in the Labour government of 1929, instead sending him to the West Indies to investigate the sugar trade. Following this he retired for the final time, living in the Cotswolds and then Sussex. He had tried writing poetry during his early years but without any success. He wrote throughout his life, faring better with a few plays (first performed at the Fabian Society) and a Fabian paper on Émile Zola (1890), but was most noted for several books on colonial matters, including White Capital and Coloured Labour in 1906 and Jamaica, the Blessed Island in 1936. Having no sons, Olivier's peerage became extinct upon his death in 1943. His nephew, the actor Laurence Olivier, would be granted a life peerage in 1970 as Baron Olivier, of Brighton in East Sussex. Family life Four daughters were born to the couple: Hon. Margery Olivier (1886–1974) Hon. Brynhild Olivier (20 May 1887 – 13 January 1935) Hon. Daphne Olivier (1889 – 14 July 1950) Hon. Noël Olivier (1893–1969). They were prominent in the Cambridge and Bloomsbury social circles around Rupert Brooke and in what Virginia Woolf dubbed the Neo-Pagans. Evelyn Louise Nicholson, Olivier, was his sister. After his death, his wife Margaret edited and published his letters and other writings. Works (1918) References Bibliography 1859 births 1943 deaths Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Companions of the Order of the Bath Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George Labour Party (UK) hereditary peers Members of the Fabian Society Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom People educated at Tonbridge School Secretaries of State for India Governors of Jamaica Olivier family Barons created by George V