Sister Margaret, daughter of the headmaster of Clifton College, an Anglican college in Bristol, was born in 1887. She was educated at St Andrews in Scotland; at a school run by Mrs Leonard Huxley at Priors Field, Godalming; and at Cambridge University. After a period of uncertainty, Sister Margaret became an Anglican nun. She taught at a school in South Africa for seven years and was later a novice mistress in India. In 1929 she went to the Solomon Islands as a teaching sister for the Melanesian Mission. In 1942 she transferred to the Melanesian Mission school at Torgil, Aoba Island, New Hebrides (Amber, Vanuatu). After furlough in England in 1948, Sister Margaret became a member of the Roman Catholic Church and served a further term in the Solomon Islands. In 1966 she went to live in New Zealand/Aotearoa.