Margaret Tempest


Margaret Mary Tempest was a British illustrator and author, best known for her illustrations of Alison Uttley's Little Grey Rabbit books.

Life

Margaret Tempest was born in 1892 in Ipswich, Suffolk, where she lived most of her life. She attended the Westminster School of Art from 1914 and was co-founder of the Chelsea Illustrators Club through which former students exhibited and sold their art.
From 1929 until the 1960s she illustrated the Little Grey Rabbit books, as well as other children's books. She also wrote and illustrated her own books of the "dressed animal" type, notably the Curly Cobbler series. She illustrated a number of religious-themed books such as A Sunday Book for Children and Little Lamb of Bethlehem.
She married Sir Edward Grimwood Mears, in 1951. Her step-grandson was the physician Alex Paton.