Margaret Hutchinson | |
---|---|
Born | Haslemere, Surrey, England | 18 December 1904
Died | 30 June 1997 92) Haslemere, Surrey, England | (aged
Nationality | British |
Occupation(s) | Teacher and writer |
Known for | Nature study |
Margaret Massey Hutchinson (1904–1997) was an English educator, naturalist and writer of Haslemere, Surrey. She 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.
Hutchinson was a lifelong observer of nature, including a specialist study of plant galls, and had a particular interest in the education of children in the context of the natural world.
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. [1]
Her early years were spent in an extremely rural environment where she developed a deep understanding of, and love for the natural world, something that would be a feature of her writing and teaching life. She described these first years in detail in her biography A Childhood in Edwardian Sussex: The making of a naturalist. [1]
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:
David Kynaston quoted a parent in his book Austerity Britain:
A serious naturalist but with a keen sense of fun [2] Margaret Hutchinson included the study of nature in all her teaching. Her first book Children as Naturalists [7] 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. [8]
Dr Evelyn Lawrence, Director of the National Froebel Foundation, said in her foreword to Children as Naturalists:
Yafflesmead School closed in 1955 so that Hutchinson could care for her aged parents [2] and was sold in 1957; [9] subsequently she dedicated herself to writing and study.
She was active at Haslemere Educational Museum as committee member, Honorary Librarian and trustee, where she often enthused parties of local school children about nature. Penny Hollow, in a postscript to the centenary edition of Margaret Hutchinson's memoirs remembered:
Hutchinson was also a member of Haslemere Natural History Society for 74 years, wrote a column for the local newspaper, The Haslemere Herald, for over 20 years and contributed to journals. [2]
In her 60s Hutchinson took up the study of plant galls (cecidology), soon becoming an expert and contributing to the Journal of the British Plant Gall Society. [10] She continued the study until her last days, eventually donating her carefully indexed collection to the Haslemere Museum. Her journals and notebooks, covering nearly 80 years, are also at the Museum. [2]
Margaret Hutchinson never married; she died on 30 June 1997, aged 92, [11] in Haslemere. The updated re-issue of An Edwardian Childhood was published in 2003 to commemorate the centenary of her birth. [2]
What can you find…? series:
Making and keeping series:
Out of doors series:
National Froebel Foundation:
The town of Haslemere and the villages of Shottermill and Grayswood are in south west Surrey, England, around 38 mi (62 km) south west of London. Together with the settlements of Hindhead and Beacon Hill, they comprise the civil parish of Haslemere in the Borough of Waverley. The tripoint between the counties of Surrey, Hampshire and West Sussex is at the west end of Shottermill.
Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel or Froebel was a German pedagogue, a student of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who laid the foundation for modern education based on the recognition that children have unique needs and capabilities. He created the concept of the kindergarten and coined the word, which soon entered the English language as well. He also developed the educational toys known as Froebel gifts.
Edith Blackwell Holden was an English artist and art teacher. She was born in Kings Norton, Birmingham. She became famous following the posthumous publication of her Nature Notes for 1906, in facsimile form, as the book The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady in 1977, which was an enormous publishing success. These, and her life story, were later the subject of a television dramatization.
Sir Jonathan Hutchinson, was an English surgeon, ophthalmologist, dermatologist, venereologist, and pathologist, who notably advocated for circumcision.
The Froebel gifts are educational play materials for young children, originally designed by Friedrich Fröbel for the first kindergarten at Bad Blankenburg. Playing with Froebel gifts, singing, dancing, and growing plants were each important aspects of this child-centered approach to education. The series was later extended from the original six to at least ten sets of gifts.
Fernhurst is a village and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England, on the A286 Milford, Surrey, to Chichester road, 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Haslemere and 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Midhurst. The parish includes the settlements of Henley Common, Kingsley Green and Bell Vale, lies within the boundaries of the South Downs National Park and is surrounded by hills.
Susan Elizabeth Blow was an American educator who opened the first successful public kindergarten in the United States. She was known as the "Mother of the Kindergarten."
Nature writing is nonfiction or fiction prose about the natural environment. It often draws heavily from scientific information and facts while also incorporating philosophical reflection upon various aspects of nature. Works are frequently written in the first person and include personal observations.
Froebel College is one of the four constituent colleges of the University of Roehampton.
Margaret Frances Jane Lowenfeld was a British pioneer of child psychology and play therapy, a medical researcher in paediatric medicine, and an author of several publications and academic papers on the study of child development and play. Lowenfeld developed a number of educational techniques which bear her name and although not mainstream, have achieved international recognition.
Susan Sutherland Isaacs, CBE was a Lancashire-born educational psychologist and psychoanalyst. She published studies on the intellectual and social development of children and promoted the nursery school movement. For Isaacs, the best way for children to learn was by developing their independence. She believed that the most effective way to achieve this was through play, and that the role of adults and early educators was to guide children's play.
Lucy Wheelock was an American early childhood education pioneer within the American kindergarten movement. She began her career by teaching the kindergarten program at Chauncy-Hall School (1879–89). Wheelock was the founder and head of Wheelock Kindergarten Training School, which later became Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts, and is now the namesake of Boston University's college of education BU Wheelock. She wrote, lectured, and translated on subjects related to education.
Ann Catherine Stewart James is an Australian illustrator of more than 60 children's books, some of which she also wrote. She was born in Melbourne, Victoria. James has been illustrating books since the 1980s and has become a significant contributor towards the development and appreciation of children's literature in Australia. In 2000 she was awarded the Pixie O'Harris Award as a formal acknowledgment of this contribution and was also the 2002 recipient of the national Dromkeen Medal for services towards children's literature. Ann James still lives and works in Melbourne, where she runs the Books Illustrated gallery and studio that she co-founded with Ann Haddon in 1988.
Haslemere Educational Museum was founded in 1888 by the eminent surgeon Sir Jonathan Hutchinson to display his growing collection of natural history specimens. After two moves it found in 1926 a permanent home in Haslemere High Street, in the town of Haslemere, Surrey, England.
Alison Adburgham was an English journalist, author and social historian, best known for her work as fashion editor of The Guardian newspaper, a position she held for 20 years. Along with Prudence Glynn of The Times and Alison Settle of The Observer, she pioneered British fashion journalism in a broadsheet national newspaper; as a bylined columnist, influencing public perception of trends in clothing, the industry itself. She also wrote several books on social history.
Sophia "Zoe" Benjamin was a pioneer of early childhood education in Australia.
M. E. Francis was the pen name of Mary Elizabeth Blundell who was a prolific Irish novelist. She was described as the best known woman novelist of the day.
Dame Margaret Joyce Bishop was an English educator who was head master of Holly Lodge High School for Girls in Smethwick from 1925 to 1935 and then of Godolphin and Latymer School for Girls in Hammersmith, West London between 1935 and 1963. She was associated with the primary school teacher training institute Froebel College, Roehampton and its associated Ibstock Place School of which she chaired the governors from 1964 to 1979. Bishop was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1953 before being upgraded to Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire ten years later.
Molly Root Brearley CBE was a British educationist, teacher and writer. She led the Froebel Educational Institute from 1955 and 1970. She established the Froebel Nursery and a matching Froebel Nursery Research Project. The 1969 book Fundamentals in the First School was created with her at the helm.
Ernest William Brockton Swanton was an English mycologist, botanist, conchologist, naturalist, antiquarian, and museum curator. He was the president of the British Mycological Society for the academic year 1915–1916 and the president of the Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland in 1921.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)