Margaret Frances Cross was born on 22 December 1866 in Preston, Lancashire. Her mother died when she was two years old and she was raised by her maternal grandmother until she, in her turn, died. She then moved to her father’s family who were farming in Cambridgeshire, completed her schooling and studied at the University of Cambridge.
Together with Hannah Clark she founded the Kings Langley Priory School, today the Rudolf Steiner School Kings Langley
While at the university, she met Mission Hannah Clark, one of the pioneers of co-educational boarding schools in Britain and began to work at her school as assistant teacher. Here the two women developed their educational methods and values of mixed-sex education close to nature, with the practical tasks farming and animal husbandry, cooking, cleaning and washing forming an integral part of the lessons. In 1909 the Priory in Kings Langley, London was acquired, with Margaret Cross listed as co-principal and responsible for much of the development work.
The intention was to integrate into the education the principles of Maria Montessori, as particularly Margaret Cross was interested in modern methods of education and made it her business to attend conferences and keep abreast of developments.
This was followed in April 1922 by a further course of lectures Steiner held, this time in England, during which period he visited the school in Kings Langley. lieutenant was this visit that prompted the two women to offer their school as the first to implement the ideas of Steiner’s education in Britain, a conversion that was to take place over many years.
lieutenant is not clear when she began to study and practice Biodynamic agriculture but in 1929 she joined the Agricultural Research circle of the Anthroposophical Society. Her initiative and research together with Ehrenfried Pfeiffer led to the founding of the Biodynamic Agricultural Foundation of Great Britain, today called the Biodynamic Agriculture Association.
She was the editor of Stars and Furrows, the newsletter of the Biodynamic Foundation from 1935 until 1951.
Mission Cross continued to run the school management together with a Mission Burton, who had joined them in 1915.
