Margaret S. Gairns

Margaret Susie Gairns was born on July 26, 1910 in Toronto.  She attended Victoria College, studying English and History, and graduated in 1931.  A year later she graduated from the Ontario College of Education, but as there were no teaching jobs available at the time, she returned to Victoria College to complete her MA. In 1937, Margaret began teaching English at Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto and remained there for her entire career, retiring in 1969. 

Margaret Gairns endowed a scholarship at Victoria College in 2004 in tribute to the professors that she had while in attendance. The Margaret Gairns Scholarship is awarded to a newly-admitted student who intends to study English or Literary Studies. 

Margaret Gairns passed away in Toronto on January 10, 2005 at the age of 94.

Fonds consists of four small travel journals belonging to Margaret Gairns that describe several of her trips to Britain in the summers of 1936, 1938 and 1954.

The fonds also contains a copy of her MA thesis from Victoria College on Mary Wollstonecraft, which she completed in the mid 1930s.

The three photographs show Margaret Gairns with her lifelong friend Marjorie Mann (nee Diehl) VIC3T1, and Marjorie's daughter Susan, whom Margaret considered like her own child.