Grizel Niven was born in
Belgravia, London, in 1906, the third of four children of William Edward Graham Niven (1878–1915) and Henriette Degacher (1878–1932). Her elder siblings were Margaret Joyce Niven (1900–1981), Henry Degacher Niven (1902–1953), and her younger brother was the actor, writer and soldier
David Niven (1910–1983). Grizel, pronounced "Grizzle", was described as "an odd Scots name" in her brother's authorised biography. Niven's mother, Henriette, was born in
Brecon, Wales. Her father was Captain (brevet Major) William Degacher (1841–1879) of the 1st Battalion,
24th Regiment of Foot, who was killed at the
Battle of Isandlwana during the
Anglo-Zulu War in 1879. Although born William Hitchcock, in 1874, he and his older brother Lieutenant Colonel Henry Degacher (1835–1902), both followed their father, Walter Henry Hitchcock, in taking their mother's maiden name of Degacher. Henriette's mother was Julia Caroline Smith, the daughter of
Lieutenant General James Webber Smith CB. Niven's father, a lieutenant in the
Berkshire Yeomanry of
Scottish descent, was killed in action in Turkey during the
Gallipoli Campaign of the
First World War on 21 August 1915. David is said to have revealed that he knew Comyn-Platt was his real father a year before his own death in 1983. The family moved to Rose Cottage in
Bembridge on the
Isle of Wight after selling their London home, where Grizel and David played cricket and sailed in a dinghy during school holidays. Grizel Niven attended boarding school in Norfolk. Following a brief career in theatre, she studied sculpture with
Henry Moore at
Chelsea Polytechnic. ==Career==