Background
Margaret Florence Harker was born on January 17, 1920 in Southport, United Kingdom.
Photographer Photohistorian teacher author
Margaret Florence Harker was born on January 17, 1920 in Southport, United Kingdom.
Margaret Florence Harker was educated at Howell's School in Denbigh, followed by the Southport School of Art. Her parents supported her when from 1940 to 1943, she studied photography at the Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster).
Margaret Harker started her career an architectural photographer, contributing to the National Buildings Record beginning from its 1941 establishment, and in excess of 1,000 of her negatives are held by its successor body at Historic England.
Margaret Harker joined the Royal Photographic Society in 1941, was elected a Fellow in 1943, served on its council from 1951 to 1976, and chaired the applied photographic distinction panel from 1951 until 1992. She also became the honorary curator of the society's collection of historic photographs. From 1958 to 1960, Margaret Harker was the first woman to be president of the Royal Photographic Society.
In 1943, she became a full-time lecturer at Regent Street Polytechnic, and in 1959 became the head of its School of Photography. She started the UK's first degree course in photography at the Polytechnic of Central London. In 1972, when it became the University of Westminster, she was appointed as one of its inaugural first six professors.
Margaret Harker was one of the founding members of the European Society for the History of Photography, its Vice President 1978-1982, and President 1986-2001. She was editor (1990-1993) of the society's printed journal, PhotoResearcher, published since 1990.
Margaret Harker died on 16 February 2013, of heart failure, after having suffered from dementia, at The Anchorage Care Home in Pulborough, and was buried in the churchyard of St Bartholomew's Church, Egdean.
On 20 December 1972, Margaret Harker married fellow photographer Richard Farrand (1916-1982).