MARGARET Rosenthal, a former head of English at Lady Spencer Churchill College in Wheatley, has died aged 97.

Miss Rosenthal, right, who read English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, inspired hundreds of students and future teachers with her love of literature.

Her grandfather Barbanel Rosenthal, who came from Lithuania, and her father George David Rosenthal, were ministers in the Church of England. She was born in 1915 and grew up in Birmingham, attending the city’s King Edward VI School for Girls.

She came up to Lady Margaret Hall in 1935, becoming a member of the college’s choral society.

She began her teaching career at Varndean Girls’ Grammar School in Brighton, also working in Bradford, at Christ’s Hospital School in Hertford and as head of the Grove School, Hindhead, before being given the opportunity to run the English department at Bletchley Teachers’ Training College in 1960. The college took over Bletchley Park, the wartime cipher and Enigma Project base.

In the 1960s,when the college moved to Wheatley Park and became the Lady Spencer-Churchill College of Education, Miss Rosenthal and her mother, Elizabeth Rosenthal, moved with it to staff accommodation there.

Following her mother’s death in 1971, she bought her own house in Farm Close Road, Wheatley.

Until her retirement in 1975, Miss Rosenthal continued to instruct teachers at the college.

After retiring she trained to became a lay reader and also served as school inspector.

She composed 300 sermons and preached in Wheatley, Forest Hill and Stanton St John churches.

Miss Rosenthal, who never married, died on January 14 in Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital.

A cremation took place on January 28, followed by a funeral service at St Mary the Virgin Church in Wheatley.