Margaret Hutchinson

Margaret Hutchinson never married; she died on 30 June 1997, aged 92, in Haslemere. The updated re-issue of An Edwardian Childhood was published in 2003 to commemorate the centenary of her birth.

Yafflesmead School closed in 1955 so that Hutchinson could care for her aged parents and was sold in 1957; subsequently she dedicated herself to writing and study.

A serious naturalist but with a keen sense of fun Margaret Hutchinson included the study of nature in all her teaching. Her first book Children as Naturalists was published in 1947 and gained her a wider reputation; the book sold for over 30 years and was favourably reviewed in Nature, the scientific journal.

In 1931 Froebel-trained Hutchinson opened Yafflesmead School at the family home in Kingsley Green, near Haslemere, in which for 25 years she provided a Froebel Kindergarten education for boys and girls between 1931 and 1955. Close friend and editor Penny Hollow wrote:

Margaret Massey Hutchinson (1904–1997) was an English educator, naturalist and writer. Hutchinson was closely involved with Haslemere Educational Museum which was founded by her grandfather Sir Jonathan Hutchinson and she established and ran a Froebel school in West Sussex for 25 years.

Margaret Hutchinson was born on 18 December 1904 into a large Quaker family in Haslemere, Surrey, the fifth of nine children of Herbert Hutchinson and Elizabeth (Ella) Woods. Herbert's father was Sir Jonathan Hutchinson FRS, the eminent surgeon, to whom Margaret was also related on her mother's side.