(Hazel) Margaret Traherne, ARCA (Lond) (1919-2006) was a well-known painter and artist in textiles and stained glass. She was born in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, née Wilkes, although part of her early life was spent in the United States. On the return of the family to England she continued her education in Southend. In 1936 she started at Croydon School of Art, under Ruskin Spear, and it was there she later met her future husband, David Traherne Thomas, a wood engraver and sculptor. They married in 1943. Towards the end of World War II she resumed her training, at Kingston School of Art, and developed skills in working with textiles and in embroidery. In 1945 she entered the Royal College of Art and graduated in 1948 and during her time there she specialised in murals and stained glass work. In 1953-54 she continued her studies at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London, developing her work with textiles and stained glass. Later she was commissioned by Basil Spence to make ten dalles de verre windows (glass panels) in 1961 for the new Coventry Cathedral and later to make banners for the Tate Gallery in 1972 & 1978 and for the Royal Academy in 1977. She shared a joint exhibition with the artist Harold Mockford ,'Towards the Millennium', at Crypt Gallery, Seaford, in East Sussex. Her work is held in the Government Art Collection (two examples), Victoria & Albert Museum and in the Stained Glass Museum at Ely in Cambridgeshire. Although her surname after marriage was Thomas, she worked professionally under her husband’s second name of Traherne, to avoid confusion with another artist also named Margaret Thomas.