11 Facts About Margaret Duley

Margaret Iris Duley was arguably Newfoundland's first novelist and certainly the first to gain an international audience.

Thomas Margaret Duley, established a successful optical, jewelry and luxury goods store on Water Street.

In 1910 Margaret Duley graduated from the Methodist College in St John's, and shortly after in 1911 she and her family visited England for an aunt's wedding.

Margaret Duley subsequently decided to study elocution and drama at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, but because of World War I she had to move home.

In 1920, Margaret Duley's father died and left her an estate of $250 a year, allowing her to live at home.

Margaret Duley joined the Ladies Reading Room and the Current Events Club, a center of advanced opinion that produced many of the leaders of the Newfoundland women's suffrage movement, as did the WPA.

Margaret Duley was a supporter of the Women's Franchise League, whose island-wide petition campaign resulted in the passage of women's suffrage in March 1925, allowing women to vote at 25, men at 21.

Margaret Duley worked for the Women's Patriotic Association and the St John's Ambulance Corporation for World War II.

In 1955, Margaret Duley's health started to decline because of Parkinson's disease.

Margaret Duley then lived with her sister-in-law and niece, who cared for her until 1968.

Margaret Duley drew upon her experiences as a volunteer at the Caribou Hut, a hostel for servicemen who flooded into the port of St John's during World War II, for her final major work, The Caribou Hut.