Margaret Petyt

• General Notes
  • @NI1003@
    Margaret Petyt was born at Bradford in 1905; she was the daughter of Harry Petty (1875-1929) and his wife Violet Coe.
    Harry, who was a millinery w arehouseman, was the son of Aaron Petyt who was born at Beamsley near Bolton Abbey.
    Aaron moved to Bradford early in his life and eventually set up business as a Tailor and Draper at Chatsworth Place, Manningham, Bradford.
    Violet Coe's father was Alfred Coe who was a commercial photographer. In the early 1890s Alfred set up a separate company, The Coe Collotype Company, to produce postcards. His businesses were highly successful but after the death of his wife in 1906 Alfred decided to retire.
    
    Margaret was a graduate and trained as a teacher. Her teaching career started in Featherstone but after a few years she returned to Bradford. Her specialist subject was English and she ended her teaching career at Woodroyd Middle School, West Bowling, Bradford in 1970.
    
    Her great passions in life were foreign travel. Margaret joined the Youth Hostel Association in 1931, a year after it was formed.
    She was a founder member of the Bradford Youth Hostel Association, which celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 1983.
    Her proudest boast was that she had spent more than 2500 nights in Youth Hostels. She rambled as far a field as New Zealand, Australia, Japan, India, Israel and Canada among others. She kept a list of all the overnight stays she made at hostels, many of them in the Yorkshire Dales, of which she was passionately fond. For many years she led groups on hostel tours in the North of England, took part in working parties carrying out cleaning and decorating chores, and served on the YHA's National Countryside Committee. Margaret also served on the committee of The Council for the Preservation of Rural England (Craven Branch).