About the Author

Margaret Erskine Wilson was born in 1915, and won a scholarship to Girton College Cambridge to study modern languages. She then studied Textile Design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London, until the war broke out in 1939. She found her vocation as a teacher in Somerset and in 1954 moved to work at Kendal Girls High School, ending her career as Head of Modern Languages there. An enthusiastic member of Kendal Natural History Society, and its President in 2007, she exhibited her paintings at the Royal Horticultural Society's Botanical Art Show in London, and won silver medals on at least two occasions. During the school summer holidays Margaret travelled widely and her paintings from that time include flowers from Afghanistan, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and Crete. She visited her brother in New York State, USA, and painted flowers she found there. She enjoyed summer walking in the Swiss, Italian and French Alps, and delighted in the alpine flowers. She died in 2009 and donated many of her paintings of wild flowers to the Kendal Natural History Society.