Cook, Margaret Shankland

Milestones

Margaret was born in 1878 to Archibald Cook, a journeyman mason, and his wife Helen Gow. She was educated at the Wallace Hall Academy in Closeburn and went from there to Edinburgh University where she graduated MA in 1899. She became a schoolmistress in Colchester, South Wales and Lancashire before being appointed the first Headmistress of the new Aberdare County School for Girls in May 1913.

She remained in that position until she retired in 1942 aged 64. She did not marry.

She left Aberdare in 1955 to live with her younger sister, Helen, and Helen’s daughter Margaret, at 17 Greenhill Place, Edinburgh. She was 77 and had been finding it difficult to cope on her own. She died there ten years later in January 1965.

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