Margaret Beatrice Cropper

Margaret Beatrice Cropper (1886–1980) was an English poet, playwright, religious writer, children’s hymn writer, and biographer rooted in the Lake District. She was born in Kendal, Westmorland, on August 29, 1886, into a Quaker family and was educated privately. The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology records that she became a Sunday-school teacher in 1900 and, around 1925, superintendent of a Sunday kindergarten at Staveley near Kendal. Apart from two visits to South Africa, she lived in or near Kendal throughout her life.

Cropper wrote across several genres. Her poetry collections included Poems (1914) and The Broken Hearth-Stone and Other Poems (1927), and her religious dramatic writing included The Nativity with Angels (1934) and Christ Crucified: A Passion Play in Six Scenes (1942). She also wrote pageants for the Girls’ Friendly Society and became known for work shaped by the life and speech of the Lake District. Her close friendship with spiritual writer Evelyn Underhill led to The Life of Evelyn Underhill (1958), an important biographical contribution to twentieth-century devotional studies.

Children’s religious education formed another major strand of Cropper’s work. She helped compile Hymns and Songs for the Church Kindergarten (1939), designed for very young children, and later Hymns and Songs for Children (1963). Her hymn writing is notable for concrete language, brief forms, and an emphasis on Christian character that children could understand and enact. She died in Kendal on September 27, 1980.