Life
A daughter of John Percival Postgate and Edith (née Allen) Postgate, Margaret was educated at Roedean School and Girton College, Cambridge. While reading H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and others at Girton, she came to question the Anglicanism of her upbringing and to embrace socialism after reading notable books on the subject.[1]
Having completed her course (Cambridge did not allow women to graduate formally until 1947), Margaret became a classics teacher at St Paul's Girls' School. Her poem The Falling Leaves, a response to the First World War, and currently on the OCR English Literature syllabus at GCSE, shows the influence of Latin poetry in its use of long and short syllables to create mimetic effects.
Education work
In 1941, Margaret Cole was co-opted onto the Education Committee of the London County Council, nominated by Herbert Morrison, and became a champion of comprehensive education. She was an alderman on London County Council from 1952 until the council's abolition in 1965.[2] She was a member of the Inner London Education Authority from its creation in 1965 until her retirement from public life in 1967.
In the 1965 New Year Honours, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for political and public services".[3] In the 1970 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) "for services to local government and education" and thereby granted the title dame.[1][4]
Brian Harrison recorded an oral history interview with Cole, in July 1975, as part of the Suffrage Interviews project, titled Oral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews.[5] Cole talks about her family and upbringing, her involvement in the Labour Party, and of her dislike for Christabel Pankhurst's extreme suffragism.
Dame Margaret Cole died on 7 May 1980, the day after her 87th birthday. Her estate was valued at £137,957.[6]
Writings
Cole wrote several books, including a biography of her husband.[7] Her brother Raymond was a labour historian, journalist and novelist.[8] She and her husband jointly authored many mystery novels.[9]
Margaret and her husband created a partnership, but not a full marriage: her husband took little interest in sex and regarded women as a distraction from men. Nevertheless, they had a son and two daughters. Margaret Cole comprehensively documented their life together in a biography she wrote of her husband after his death.[10]
The Coles wrote 29 detective novels together, credited as "G.D.H. and M. Cole".
