Morag Styles, who has died from cancer aged 77, pushed forward the boundaries of academic understanding in the previously neglected fields of children’s literature, picturebooks and poetry education. She spent the bulk of her career, from the 1970s onwards, as a teacher educator at Homerton College, Cambridge, and in 2011 became the first professor of children’s poetry at Cambridge University. This was the crowning recognition of a distinguished career, but it was made even more remarkable by her having no formal academic qualifications beyond studying for an ordinary degree.
Morag’s first love was poetry, but she was a versatile teacher with wide-ranging interests in literature, language, creative writing and the arts. In the 1980s, alongside her teaching at Homerton, she began publishing extensively, including a series of influential poetry anthologies. The first of these, I Like That Stuff: Poems from Many Cultures (1984), introduced younger readers to a range of then under-represented African Caribbean, Asian and Black British writers. Morag had a deep affinity with Caribbean poetry. As with another of her great loves, Robert Burns, she was drawn to its vital connection with oral culture, its musicality, and the rich articulation of ordinary men and women’s creative resilience.
She enjoyed collaborating, and published books on poetry teaching with Helen Taylor and Jenny Dunn in the late 80s. She became a key figure in poetry education from that time onwards, fighting for recognition of children’s poetry especially, which was often ignored, even in poetry festivals. She wrote the first history of children’s poetry, From the Garden to the Street (1998) and co-edited Poetry and Childhood (2010).
Morag was a seminal figure in putting children’s literature on the map as a field of academic enquiry. She initiated an undergraduate programme in children’s literature at Homerton College with Victor Watson and Eve Bearne. This was the seedbed for what became the thriving Centre for Research in Children’s Literature at Cambridge, with extensive master’s and doctoral programmes attracting an international cohort of students. Morag became a leading scholar in the emerging field of picture books.
She organised a symposium, Reading Pictures, in September 2000, exploring the power of picturebook images and children’s reponses, and attended by more than 300 scholars, artists, teachers, librarians and publishers from around the world. This was coordinated with a major exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Picture This! Picturebook Art at the Millennium, where a dazzling array of contemporary artists were represented. Morag co-wrote the groundbreaking Children Reading Pictures (2003), reissued in several editions and updated in 2023, which opened the way for sophisticated appreciation of picturebook artistry that made understanding of children’s voices and perspectives central. This was a core value underpinning all her work.
Morag was born in Dundee, the daughter of Bette (nee McRobb) and Ruairidh Ross, and was always proud of her Scottish heritage. Her father had served as a rear gunner on Lancaster bombers in the second world war but had started a career as a tea planter in India by the time Morag was born. Both parents were away in India for long periods while Morag was a child, when she was brought up by relatives in Scotland. She was educated at John Watson’s school and then Edinburgh University, which she left before her final honours year to join her husband, Jon Styles, whom she had married in 1968, and who had moved to Cambridge to start a PhD.
Morag initially worked as a primary school teacher in Cambridge before running a variety of courses at Homerton College that eventually led to a full-time post there. She was an inspirational teacher with a gift, as Virginia Woolf put it, “for the tune of words”. Her warmth, empathy and enthusiasm enabled her to connect with people of all ages and walks of life, but particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Of all the initiatives she led, the one perhaps closest to her heart was the Caribbean Poetry Project, which ran from 2010 to 2015. The project was a collaboration between the University of the West Indies and Cambridge University, funded by the Centre for Commonwealth Education. Its main aim was to promote the teaching, dissemination and understanding of Caribbean poetry both in the West Indies and the UK.
Working closely with Caribbean poets, educators and children brought together strands of Morag’s life that she had been passionate about since her first anthology. It was in many ways the perfect project to round off her professional life. She poured her energy and organisational skills into it, making lifelong friends with, among others, the poet Velma Pollard and Professor Beverley Bryan in Jamaica.
Morag was immensely hard-working and productive – brilliant at generating and directing new initiatives. She brought a special kind of positive energy to groups and had a gift for bringing out potential in younger colleagues that they barely knew existed. She leaves a rich legacy of achievements – “she illuminated so many corners of our literary landscape”, as her old friend at the Arts Council, Alastair Niven, observed.
But she always felt that her achievements sprang from being able to harness the diverse talents of those around her, as much as from her own creativity and drive. When she was appointed professor, she threw an impromptu party (typical of Morag) for all the people she had worked with. She made a speech that gave full credit to the unsung work of the administrators on all the projects she had been involved with. She felt they were being honoured equally in her promotion. She was keenly aware of the collective endeavour underpinning all individual achievement.
Morag inspired so many students, teachers and children over the years. But it will be her personal qualities that those privileged to work closely with her will remember and cherish above all – her warmth, indomitable spirit, kindness, generosity and discernment.
Morag’s marriage ended in divorce in 1983. She is survived by her son, Ross, and her two sisters, Rosslyn and Caron.
• Morag Chrystine Campbell Styles, literary scholar, born 19 September 1947; died 29 December 2024
