Margaret Tidemann was born in
Adelaide, the eldest child of Ernest Phillips Tidemann, a dentist, and his wife Beryl Chudleigh Tidemann, a kindergarten teacher. She attended Walford House, now
Walford Anglican School for Girls, until she was almost 17 and graduated from the
University of Adelaide in 1962 with First Class Honours in English. She was influenced to study Old and Middle English and Old Norse by
Ralph Elliott, whom the university appointed as she was starting the Honours course. She then completed a
B.Litt. at
Oxford University on an overseas scholarship from the University of Adelaide and a scholarship from
Somerville College. She then worked as a lecturer at
St. Hilda's College and
Lady Margaret Hall, and in 1968–69 visited the
Arnamagnæan Institute in
Copenhagen on a travelling fellowship. She became a lecturer at the University of Sydney in 1969, was appointed McCaughey Professor of English Language and Early English Literature in 1990 and in 1997 became Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies. She retired in 2009 and since then has been Honorary Professor in the Medieval and Early Modern Centre and Emeritus Professor of English. ==Honours==