18 Facts About Margaret Swain

Margaret Helen Swain was an English embroidery and textile historian.

Margaret Swain was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1981.

Margaret Swain was born on 13 May 1909, in Parbold, Lancashire, England.

Margaret Swain was the oldest of five children of the iron and steel merchant John Swain and his wife, Isabella, Hart.

Margaret Swain remembered her time at the hospital from 1930 to 1937 fondly despite the strict discipline from the matron she worked under.

Margaret Swain authored Pre-Reformation Nurses in England in 1933, which won her the American Nutting Dock prize, and wrote Some Medieval Nurses in England for Nursing Times in the same year.

Margaret Swain went to art history lectures by David Talbot Rice at the University of Edinburgh.

In 1947, Margaret Swain moved to Scotland as the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival commenced.

Margaret Swain researched the topic, which was compiled into the 1955 small book, The Flowerers, the story of Ayrshire White Needlework.

Margaret Swain documented old family bills and papers and brought them to scholarly attention in her work.

Margaret Swain wrote A Devotional Miscellany in the mid-1960s, and held two exhibitions called Needlework from Scottish Country Houses and Clothes from Scottish Houses at The Merchants Hall, Edinburgh in 1966 and 1969, respectively.

Margaret Swain was sought to catalogue the embroideries and tapestries of the Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh by the individuals tasked with upgrading the Palace's displays in the mid-1970s.

Margaret Swain believed this was an area of collections that had been neglected in previous years.

Margaret Swain authored the book "for herself" because it was an area she had a great interest in.

Margaret Swain wrote Tapestries and Textiles at the Palace of Holyrood House in 1988 followed by Embroidered Stuart Pictures in 1990 and Embroidered Georgian Pictures in 1994.

Margaret Swain offered advice to art bodies, country houses and museums such as National Art Collections Fund and National Trust for Scotland and talked to scholars like Edith Standen at Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston's Nancy Graves Cabot and John Nevison of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Margaret Swain lectured and spoke to audiences in the United Kingdom and overseas and regularly attended conferences of the Centre International d'Etude des Textiles Anciens.

Margaret Swain was a member of the council of the Embroiderers' Guild since 1944, The Costume Society, and was an associated member of the Weavers' Workshop of Great Britain.