The sad news has reached The Society that Professor Margaret Harker-Farrand HonFRPS died on 16 February 2013 aged 93. Her funeral will take place at 11am on Monday, 11 March, at St Bartholomew Church, Egdean, near Pulborough, East Sussex, RH20 1JU,

Margaret was The Society’s first female President serving in that role between 1958 and 1960. She had joined The Society in 1941, becaming an Associate the same year and a Fellow in 1942. Margaret served on Council and was involved with The Society's distinctions and she had an  active involvement with The Society’s Collection where she was Honorary Curator for many years.

Away from The Society Margaret was a respected photographer in her own right, a photographic historian and author, an educator at the Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster) where she was the founder of contemporary photographic education and she instrumental in developing photographic education in the UK.  Margaret was also active with the Institute of British Photographers, now the BIPP, the European Society for the History of Photography, the Photographers' Gallery, the British Journal of Photography, and many other bodies. 

A full obituary will appear in the April RPS Journal.

Dr Michael Pritchard FRPS

Image: Margaret Harker, 1952. Courtesy the archive of Dr S D Jouhar FRPS FPSA