Noël Oakeshott

Life

Oakeshott was born at 58 Green Street, Mayfair, London, the daughter of the physician Robert Oswald Moon and his wife, Ethel Waddington (died 1933), daughter of Major-General Thomas Waddington of Pangbourne. She was the elder sister of historian Sir Penderel Moon, and had three younger sisters, Constance Mary, Margaret Willoughby, and Emilie De Rontenay. Her mother was a suffragist and artist.

Oakeshott was a pupil at the Farmhouse School, Mayortorne Manor near Wendover, run by Isabel Fry; her mother had known Constance Masefield (née Crommelin), Fry's friend, during the 1890s. There she learned Latin, and was taught Greek individually at her father's request. She acted there in a production of Iphigenia in Tauris, in Gilbert Murray's translation. She entered the University of Oxford as a non-college student, lodging with David George Hogarth. Following the Literae humaniores course from 1922, she completed "Mods". She was then advised to transfer to the Diploma in Classical Archaeology. In this early period at Oxford, Richard Hughes wooed her by letter.

Socially, Oakeshott met at this time classical scholars including Cyril Bailey. She fell in with Balliol College students, through Hugh Keen, father of Maurice Keen. In 1926 she acted the role of Leader of the chorus in a Balliol production of Hippolytus. The title role was played by Walter Oakeshott, who proposed marriage to her at the end of the year.