Olive Gibbs

Olive Frances Gibbs, DL (née Cox; 17 February 1918 – 28 September 1995) was an English Labour politician and anti-nuclear weapons campaigner. She was twice the Lord Mayor of Oxford and was chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Early life and education Gibbs was born as Olive Frances Cox on 17 February 1918 at the "Christ Church Old Buildings" tenements in the St Thomas parish of West Oxford. Her father was letterpress printer Lazarus Cox and her mother was Mary Ann Cox.

Gibbs was educated at St Thomas’s School on Osney Lane, then won a scholarship to study at Oxford High School for Girls and Milham Ford School. , and played a large role in saving the working class community of Jericho from being knocked down and replaced with offices in the 1960s.

Gibbs was a founding member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

Gibbs was made an Honorary Freeman both of the City of Oxford and of the City of London. She was awarded Oxford Brookes University's first-ever honorary degree in 1986 and was a Deputy Lieutenant of Oxfordshire.

Death and legacy Gibbs died on 28 September 1995, aged 77. Another oil portrait of Gibbs by P. G. Rose is held by Oxford Brookes University, and reproduced in the Art UK catalogue.

In November 2024, Christopher Baines and Helen Sheppard produced the documentary Olive Gibbs: A Remarkable Woman about her life.