Mabel Colhoun

Mabel Remington Colhoun
Born	2 November 1905 Derry, Ireland
Died	1992 Derry
Website	https://towermuseumcollections.com/mabelcolhoun/

Mabel Colhoun (2 November 1905 – 1992), was a Derry-based pioneering photographer, teacher and archaeologist.

Biography

Mabel Remington Colhoun was born on 2 November 1905 in Londonderry to John Colhoun and Lizzie Johnston Gordon. Her family were originally from Inishowen, County Donegal.She attended the Strand House school at asylum road before it closed down in 1915 because of the start of world war one this was a girl's only school opened in 1860 by misses Francis and Annie Holmes in 1860 after this school closed she attended St Lurach's College which taught around 35 pupils and was opened in 1900 by Misses Jane Kerr, and it taught strong curriculum and education situated at the junction of Lawrence Hill and Northland road. It then amalgamated with the Victoria Highschool or originally Londonderry Ladies' Collegiate School in 1877 by Misses Margaret Mackillip and her other sisters, near this was the Northland's School Of HouseWifery and Housecraft and aswell Midwifery opened in 1908 also by the miss Mackillip sisters.This amalgamation formed the Londonderry Highschool For Young Ladies, in 1962 this school was equipped with gardening and other subjects such as french as the principal who did this was Missmacelroy whom her husband was french also along of these subjects was a new preparatory school where Mabel was the Head of the Nursery department.

Colhoun trained in the Froebel educational technique. She worked as a teacher and was the first principal of the Preparatory Department in the Londonderry High School. She began working there in 1936 and retired in 1969. Colhoun also started a school in Deanfield, LondonDerry and helped establish nursery schools throughout the 1950s and 1960s as the chair of the Londonderry preparatory nursery School Association. She worked extensively on the area from which her family came, and her work was published in The Heritage of Inishowen: Its Archaeology, Heritage and Folklore.

During her life, Colhoun travelled extensively. In the 1920s she visited the pyramids. In the 1930s she hiked in the Alps. She toured the north of Ireland by bicycle. Colhoun documented archaeological monuments and transcribed stories and folklore in Ireland, many previously unrecorded. Colhoun did not just record the finds she came across but also ensured their survival. She worked to protect and recover those monuments she felt were at risk. She was nicknamed "The Ferret" for her ability to get to the bottom of details. She created an archive of historically useful material and her collections were donated to the Tower Museum in Derry which has since held exhibitions of her work. Her detailing of history included writing, sketches and thousands of photographs which are now being digitised by the archaeologist Denise Henry. Her photos document monuments, but also daily life in Ireland from the 1930s through the 1980s. In 2017 she was commemorated with a blue plaque from the Ulster History Circle to an "educationalist, historian, and archaeologist" on the museum.