10 Facts About Margaret Hutchinson

Margaret Massey Hutchinson was an English educator, naturalist and writer of Haslemere, Surrey.

Margaret 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 Woods.

Herbert's father was Sir Jonathan Hutchinson FRS, the eminent surgeon, to whom Margaret was related on her mother's side.

Margaret Hutchinson described these first years in detail in her biography A Childhood in Edwardian Sussex: The making of a naturalist.

In 1931 Froebel-trained Margaret 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.

Margaret Hutchinson was active at Haslemere Educational Museum as committee member, Honorary Librarian and trustee, where she often enthused parties of local school children about nature.

Margaret Hutchinson was 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.

Margaret Hutchinson continued the study until her last days, eventually donating her carefully indexed collection to the Haslemere Museum.

Margaret Hutchinson never married; she died on 30 June 1997, aged 92, in Haslemere.