Marshall, Sybil Mary 1913–2005
Marshall, Sybil Mary 1913–2005
(Sybil Mary Edwards Marshall)
OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born November 26, 1913, in Ramsey, Huntingdon, England; died August 29, 2005. Educator and author. Marshall was a highly innovative educator of young children whose books and teachings were credited with helping to liberalize the English school system during the 1960s. She began work as a village school teacher at the age of nineteen. Although she had received very little formal training for the job, she became a highly inspiring and innovative teacher who fostered great creativity in her students. Her talents recognized, Marshall was made head teacher of Kingston Country Primary School in Cambridgeshire, where she taught for eighteen years. After enrolling in college in 1960, she attended New Hall, Cambridge, where she earned a bachelor's degree in 1962 and a master's degree in 1967. Her first book, An Experiment in Education (1963), drew on her early teaching experience and encouraged educators to be more creative in the classroom. From 1962 to 1967 Marshall was a lecturer in primary education at Sheffield University, and from 1967 to 1976 she was a reader in the field for Sussex University, where she was head of the primary education department. Meanwhile, she published several books about primary-school teaching, including Adventure in Creative Education (1968) and Creative Writing (1974). She also served as an advisor for the British children's television program Picture Box for twenty-three years. In addition to her works concerning creativity in education, Marshall was a noted folklorist, winning the Angel Prize for her Everyman's Book of English Folk Tales (1981). She also wrote a number of books about her life and family, including Fenland Chronicle (1963), Once upon a Village (1979), and The Silver New Nothing: Edwardian Children in the Fen (1987). In more recent years, Marshall wrote novels with strongly autobiographical roots, including A Nest of Magpies (1993), Sharp through the Hawthorn (1994), Strip the Willow (1996), and Ring the Bell Backwards (2000).
OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
Daily Telegraph (London, England), October 3, 2005.
Guardian (London, England), August 31, 2005, p. 20.
Independent (London, England), September 5, 2005, p. 50.
Times (London, England), September 28, 2005, p. 66.