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Margaret Mitchell, Curator and Librarian pictured in the 1970s by the Brook Street display cases
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As BOA Librarian for many years, Miss Margaret Mitchell served under George Giles and eventually took over the bulk of the day-to-day running of the museum as well. She was greatly respected for her subject knowledge and was responsible for writing several articles about the collections and delivering external lectures that raised the museum's profile on the international optometric stage. In particular, drawing partly on the work of the BOA Fellow, Walter Gasson, she was one of the first to outline the problems with traditional accounts of the invention of spectacles. Both the museum and library collections continued to expand in her time and, consequently, she was the last individual who found it possible to run the museum whilst fulfilling another role at the same time.
In 1982 Margaret Mitchell wrote a History of the British Optical Association 1895-1978 which includes an entire chapter devoted to the museum.