Margaret Cole


Dame Margaret Isabel Cole, DBE was an English socialist politician, writer and poet. She wrote several detective stories in conjunction with her husband, G. D. H. Cole. She went on to hold important posts in London government in the period after the Second World War.

Life

A daughter of John Percival Postgate and Edith Postgate, Margaret was educated at Roedean School and Girton College, Cambridge. While reading of 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.
Having completed her course, 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.

Pacifist period

During World War I, her brother Raymond Postgate sought exemption from military service as a socialist conscientious objector, but was denied recognition and jailed for refusing military orders. Her support for her brother led her to a belief in pacifism. During her subsequent campaign against conscription, she met G. D. H. Cole, whom she married in a registry office in August 1918. The couple worked together for the Fabian Society before moving to Oxford in 1924, where they both taught and wrote.
In the early 1930s, Margaret abandoned her pacifism in reaction to the suppression of socialist movements by the governments in Germany and Austria and to the events of the Spanish Civil War.

Education work

In 1941, Margaret Cole was co-opted onto the Education Committee of the London County Council, on the nomination of 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. She was a member of the Inner London Education Authority from its creation in 1965 until her retirement from public life in 1967.
Harold Wilson had given her an OBE in 1965 and she became a Dame when she was awarded a DBE in 1970.

Writings

She wrote several books, including a biography of her husband. Margaret's brother Raymond was a labour historian, journalist and novelist. Margaret and her husband jointly authored many mystery novels.
Margaret and her husband created a partnership, but not a full marriage: her husband took little interest in sex and he regarded women as a distraction for 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.

Detective stories

By G. D. H. and M. I. Cole: