Helen Metcalf
{{Short description|British academic, educator and politician}}
{{About|the British educator|the founder of the Rhode Island School of Design|Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
Dame Helen Metcalf, DBE, FRSA (née Pitt; 7 October 1946 – 3 December 2003) was a British academic, educator, and politician.
Biography
Born as Helen Pitt in Enfield, Middlesex, she attended Enfield Grammar School and Manchester University and earned a teaching diploma at Roehampton University. Later she earned her Master's in Economic History at the London School of Economics (LSE). In 1968 she married David Metcalf, a fellow student at Manchester University, and later a professor of economics at the LSE; they had one child, a son, Tom.
Among the schools at which she taught were Dame Alice Owens from 1972; Islington Green Comprehensive from 1974; and Acland Burghley Comprehensive from 1982. She took a hiatus from teaching after being elected as a Labour councillor in Islington in 1971. She resigned from local politics in 1978 and returned to teaching. She became headteacher at Chiswick Community School in 1988.{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1449054/Dame-Helen-Metcalf.html |title=Dame Helen Metcalf |work=The Daily Telegraph |access-date=9 December 2021 |date=11 December 2003}}
For most of her time as head of Chiswick Community School (1988–2001) she was ill, battlingbreast cancer which had been initially diagnosed in 1991. She died in 2003, aged 57, in London. In recognition of her achievements, Helen Metcalf was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her "services to education" in 1998.{{cite news |title=Dame Helen Metcalf loses battle with cancer: Universal praise for former head of Chiswick Community School |url=http://www.chiswickw4.com/default.asp?section=info&page=conschools20.htm |access-date=9 December 2021 |work=Chiswick W4 |date=4 December 2003}}
References
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Category:Alumni of the London School of Economics
Category:Heads of schools in London
Category:Deaths from cancer in England
Category:Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Category:Councillors in the London Borough of Islington
Category:Labour Party (UK) councillors
Category:People from Enfield, London
Category:People educated at Enfield Grammar School
Category:Alumni of the University of Manchester
Category:Alumni of the University of Roehampton