Margaret Dorothea Rowbotham

Born on 19 June 1883 at 6 Park Villas, Plumstead, Kent, Margaret Rowbotham (sometimes known as Madge) was the daughter of John Edward Rowbotham, a shipbroker, and Miriam Anne Isaac. She was educated at Blackheath High School and graduated in 1905 from Girton College, Cambridge, where she studied mathematics. From Cambridge Training College, she received a diploma to teach. ==Career==

From 1906 to 1913 she taught maths at Roedean School for girls in Brighton. She joined Galloway Engineering Co. at Tongland near Kirkcudbright, Dumfriesshire, becoming a machine shop and works superintendent at Tongland Works beginning in 1917. In 1921, she was employed at Swainson Pump Company in Newcastle as assistant works manager. She then worked at Model Laundries in Wealdstone, Kent from 1922 to 1923 under Ethyl Jayne, before teaching again at Roedean School in 1924. In 1927, she was appointed a director of the electrical engineering firm M. Partridge & Co., founded by her partner Margaret Partridge, where she stayed until 1953. She also worked in other engineering positions. In her later years, she worked in Eastbourne as a manager of a guesthouse. == Retirement and later work ==

Following their retirement, Rowbotham lived in Devon, with Margaret Partridge, and encouraged the members of their local Women's Institute to wire the village hall for electricity. On 15 September 1962, the couple wrote a letter of "grandmotherly advice" on the joys of retirement to their fellow women engineers in WES, and listed designing and supervising the building of a sports pavilion, and the conversion of a local stately home into a boys' school as well as serving on the Parish Council as part of their retirement activity. The remains of both Margarets lie in Willand churchyard. She died on 23 February 1978. ==Notes==