crochet lace-maker, embroiderer, painter, writer and amateur astronomer, was a woman of strong character who devoted 45 years of her long life to the development of a new form of crocheted lace. Born in Kilmarnock, Scotland, on 22 April 1842, she was the eldest of the eight children of Thomas and Matilda Lang. When she was 13, the family followed Thomas Lang out to Australia on the Star of the East and settled in Ballarat. From surviving letters it appears that she and her father were very close; he called her 'Maggie Ann’ and shared with her a strong interest in spelling reform, a subject on which she later wrote.
In 1864 Margaret Ann Lang married Edwin Richard Field, a mining engineer whose pioneering survey and prospecting work tended to take him to some of the wildest and most remote parts of Australia. In the early years of their marriage they lived in Costerfield (Vic.), named after Edwin and his mining partner Alan Coster. When Edwin went to the Gulf of Carpentaria Margaret Ann trekked north with their three children to join him in Normanton where, like many pioneer women, she established a home and cared for her children in the face of isolation and considerable hardship. This she eased through the study of astronomy and through countless hours absorbed in experimenting with her crochet hook.
In 1909, about seven years after her husband’s death, Margaret Ann published the first of her two books, Australian Lace Crochet (Easy and Artistic) , under the name of '“A Briton Beyond the Seas” (Mrs Edwin Field)’. In it she presented instructions for the delicate crocheted lace she had so painstakingly developed, with each different design called after a star or constellation, thus linking the two great passions of her life. Both the London and Melbourne press received Australian Lace Crochet favourably and, seeking to have her work endorsed, Mrs Field wrote to Queen Alexandra. The queen’s commendation was duly given and a lengthy correspondence with the ladies in waiting followed. Sadly, Australian Lace-Crochet never achieved the widespread acclaim that its inventor had so optimistically imagined. Her second book, The Stars for 3D (1910), is an instructional booklet for star gazers which describes the planets, comets and meteors and explains how to find the stars and constellations of the southern sky.
Margaret Ann Field lived to be 94, always retaining a strong allegiance to her British, especially Scottish, origins. She also retained her adventurous spirit, returning to London in 1917 – aged 75 – in order to attend the Slade School of Art. She died in 1936, remembered by her grandchildren as an indomitable old lady with an ear trumpet.
