Bryher (1894-1983)
Bryher was the pen name of Annie Winifred Ellerman, an English novelist, poet, memoirist, and magazine editor. She took her pseudonym from her favourite island of the Scilly archipelago (Cornwall). She came from a ship-owning family and her wealth enabled her to support struggling artists and friends — e.g. she helped to finance Sylvia Beach's bookshop Shakespeare and Company. In 1918, Bryher met Hilda Doolittle. Their relationship was to be a lifelong one and at one point Bryher even used her marriage of convenience to formally adopt Doolittle's daughter, Perdita, whom she later made an heir in her will.
In the years leading up to World War II, Bryher helped more than 100 people escape Nazi persecution using her home in Switzerland as a 'receiving station' for Jewish refugees.