Actor, singer, spy, Master of Ormond

Codebreaker, intelligence officer, singer, television presenter and professor, Brinley Newton-John was Master of Ormond from 1954 to 1958.

Brinley brought with him to Ormond his five-year-old daughter Olivia Newton-John. In her memoir, she recalls that her father was Ormond’s youngest ever ‘principal’, allowed alcohol on campus for the first time and made the college co-educational. None of these things are true. She did however love living in Allen House and pretending to be an explorer or princess inside its neo-Gothic stone walls.

Prior to arriving at Ormond, Brinley was an intelligence officer in World War II. He used his exceptional German language skills and charm to gain the confidence and secrets of Germans including Rudolf Hess, a leading Nazi. Later, Newton-John worked at Bletchley Park deciphering intelligence gained the British broke the German Enigma Code.

At Ormond, Brinley had an excellent rapport with students. He oversaw the construction of the Lodge and the planning of O Wing and Picken Court, the latter of which doubled the size of Ormond’s student population.

Brinley left Ormond to become a Professor of German Literature. He was also a talented singer who had contemplated pursuing a career in music; an amateur actor and later host of his own television and radio shows.

Ormond commissioned a portrait of Brinley Newton-John by Aileen Dent but it was later replaced with another that the subject’s family thought more accurately reflected his gregarious personality. This newer portrait hangs in the Dining Hall.