Margaret Gentle Harwood

Margaret Gentle Harwood CBE (about 1925 – 23 June 2004)[1][2] was a British educator in Ghana and Nigeria. From 1956 to 1963, she was principal of Queen's College, Lagos, and from 1963 to 1968 she was an adviser to the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Education.

This article is about the British educator; for the American astronomer of similar name, see Margaret Harwood.
Margaret Gentle Harwood

CBE
A smiling older white woman with white hair
Margaret Gentle Harwood, from a 1986 newspaper
Born
Margaret Gentle

about 1925
Suffolk
Died23 June 2004 (age 79)
Suffolk
Occupation(s)Educator, school principal in Lagos
SpousePeter Hedley Harwood

Early life and education

Gentle was from Brandon, Suffolk, the daughter of Walter George Gentle and Elizabeth Skelton Berry Gentle. She attended the University of Nottingham.[3]

Career

During World War II, Gentle served in the Women's Royal Naval Service.[3][4] She joined the Colonial Education Service after the war,[5] and taught at the Achimota School in Ghana, and at Queen's College in Ede.[4] In 1956, she was arrested with a family friend, H. C. L. Heywood, the Provost of Southwell, while exploring ruins in Yugoslavia during a vacation. They were questioned under armed guard for several hours before they were released.[3][6]

Gentle became principal of Queens College, Lagos, in 1956,[7] during a time of internal and external tumult, as the school was expanding and moving into new buildings, while Nigeria was becoming independent and curricula changed to reflect this.[4] When she left the principalship in 1963, she was succeeded by the school's first Nigerian principal, Iphigenia Efunjoke Coker.[7]

From 1963 to 1968, Gentle was an adviser to the Federal Ministry of Education, inspecting colleges, attending ceremonies,[8] and recruiting school administrators.[9] She represented Nigeria at international meetings, especially at the Commonwealth Education Conference, held in Ottawa in 1964, and in Lagos in 1968.[4] On leave in England in 1964, she gave a slide show about her work in Nigeria to the Women's Institute in Brandon.[10]

After marriage, Harwood resigned from government work,[11] and returned to teaching in Nigerian schools. She was awarded a CBE in 1969.[4][12] The Harwoods returned the England in 1979.[9] She remained active in women's international organizations after retirement.[13]

Publications
  • "The Sixth Form in Nigerian Secondary Schools" (1965)[14]

Personal life

Gentle married fellow British educator Peter Hedley Harwood in 1968, in Lagos.[9] She died in 2004, at the age of 79, in a hospital in Suffolk.[2]

References
  1. "Miss Gentle Returning to Africa". Bury Free Press. 20 August 1954. p. 12. Retrieved October 5, 2023 – via The British Newspaper Archive, via The Wikipedia Library. 28-year-old Miss Margaret Gentle
  2. "Margaret Harwood (née Gentle) CBE". The Daily Telegraph. 2004-06-25. p. 26. Retrieved 2023-10-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. "Soldiers Arrest Two Who Were Searching for Ruins". Bury Free Press. 7 September 1956. p. 10. Retrieved October 5, 2023 – via The British Newspaper Archive, via The Wikipedia Library.
  4. Callaway, Helen (1986-08-01). Gender, Culture and Empire: European Women in Colonial Nigeria. Springer. pp. 126–127. ISBN 978-1-349-18307-4.
  5. Whitehead, Kay (2020), Mayer, Christine; Arredondo, Adelina (eds.), "Women Educators' Sojourns Around the British Empire from the Interwar Years to the Mid-Twentieth Century", Women, Power Relations, and Education in a Transnational World, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 223–248, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-44935-3_10, ISBN 978-3-030-44934-6, retrieved 2023-10-05
  6. "Provost of Southwell Arrested in Yugoslavia". Nottingham Evening Post. 1 September 1956. p. 5. Retrieved October 5, 2023 – via The British Newspaper Archive, via The Wikipedia Library.
  7. "History – Queen's College Old Girls Association". Retrieved 2023-10-05.
  8. "Fit for a Provost". Newark Advertiser. 18 September 1965. p. 1. Retrieved October 5, 2023 – via The British Newspaper Archive, via The Wikipedia Library.
  9. Harwood, Jonathan. "Obituary: Peter Hedley Harwood" Old Kings Club Newsletter 112(December 2007): 12.
  10. "With the Women's Institutes: Brandon". Bury Free Press. 14 August 1964. p. 9. Retrieved October 5, 2023 – via The British Newspaper Archive, via The Wikipedia Library.
  11. Whitehead, Kay (2021-04-16). "Single women teachers as missionaries and Women Education Officers in mid-twentieth century British Africa". Women's History Review. 30 (3): 445–464. doi:10.1080/09612025.2020.1763654. ISSN 0961-2025.
  12. "Diplomatic Service & Overseas List". The Daily Telegraph. 1969-01-01. p. 18. Retrieved 2023-10-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. "Simon Speaks Up for Women". Evening Post. 1986-10-06. p. 8. Retrieved 2023-10-05 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. Gentle, Margaret (October 1965). "The Sixth Form in Nigerian Secondary Schools". West African Journal of Education. 9 (3): 128.
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