Cole, Margaret (1893–1980)

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Cole, Margaret (1893–1980)

British political activist and writer. Name variations: Dame Margaret Cole. Born Margaret Isabel Postgate in 1893; died in 1980; daughter of (John) Percival Postgate (1853–1926, a classical scholar); granddaughter of John Postgate (1820–1881, a reformer); educated at Roedean School and Girton College, Cambridge (degree in classics, 1914); married G.D.H. Cole (a socialist and scholar), in 1918 (died 1949); children: two daughters and one son.

Born into a liberal family, Dame Margaret Cole would influence many significant Labour politicians as a leading socialist. Her grandfather was John Postgate, a famous reformer, and her father was a Cambridge Classics don. After her graduation from Girton College, Cambridge, where she earned a degree in classics in 1914, Cole taught at St Paul's Girls' School in London for two years. Her belief in socialism was strengthened when her brother Raymond was imprisoned as a conscientious objector during World War I. Cole joined the Fabian Society's Research Department, which was under the domination of Guild Socialists seeking worker control of factories.

In 1916, she met G.D.H. Cole, a socialist and scholar who had authored The World of Labour (1913) and was the leader of the radical opposition to Fabian leaders Sidney and Beatrice Webb . The Coles broke away from the Fabian Society in 1918, the year they were married, and formed the Labour Research Department. This Department, however, became dominated by the British Communist Party, after which the Coles abandoned it and moved to Oxford where G.D.H. was appointed a university reader in economics. But Margaret Cole disliked Oxford and from 1929 on they maintained a house in London. Reunited with the Webbs, in the late 1920s they rejoined the Fabian Society. The Coles organized a special strike committee in the General Strike of 1926, and were responsible for influencing many future Labour leaders, including Hugh Gaitskell.

Margaret Cole was a defender of egalitarian education and during the 1930s organized classes for the Workers' Education Association, an organization for which she taught from 1925 to 1949. In 1935, the Coles founded the new Fabian Research Bureau, which collected a good deal of the data for postwar Labour reforms. They wrote Review of Europe of Today (1933) and The Condition of Britain (1937). Margaret was a member of the London County Council (1943–65), of which she was alderman from 1952 to 1965, and she was with the Inner London Education Authority from 1965 to 1967 and served as president of the Fabian Society from 1963.

Among her many writings are Makers of the Labour Movement (1948) and Beatrice and Sidney Webb (1955). She also edited two volumes of Beatrice Webb's diaries. Prior to G.D.H.'s death in 1949, Margaret wrote more than 30 critically acclaimed detective novels with her husband. In 1965, she was created OBE; in 1970, she was created DBE (Dame of the British Empire).