A much-loved former York headmistress has died aged 95.

Friends have been paying tribute to Margery Willoughby, headmistress of Mill Mount School for more than 20 years, where she "set the highest standards".

Miss Willoughby died at Somerset Nursing Home, Wheldrake on Saturday, and was being cremated in private today.

She was born and brought up in Buxton, Derbyshire, the daughter of a headmaster, and schooled at Manchester High School.

Studying history at Girton College, Cambridge, she went on to teach at schools in Nottingham and London before moving to York in 1946 to take on the Mill Mount job.

Her friend, James Fairbairn, said she came to the city because it stirred her passion for history.

"I think she was attracted here because she was a historian with her roots in the North of England. Like a great many people, I suppose, she realised how nice it would be to work here."

She enjoyed tremendous success at the school, said Mr Fairbairn.

"She had great respect from both the staff and the girls," he said.

"She set the highest standards, intellectually and in behaviour. She was noted for her fair and decisive judgements - a professional of the old school."

She later struck up a strong friendship with her successor at Mill Mount School, Joyce Cook, through their shared love of history.

Miss Willoughby, a distant cousin of the Labour peer, Baroness Tessa Blackstone, was also a prominent member of the York community for many years.

She was a former chairman of York Philosophical Society, chairman of governors at York College for Girls, and founding chairman of the local branch of the National Trust.

She served on the board of the Yorkshire Museum, and was a member of York Civic Trust, and the Friends of York Minster, as well as serving as a city magistrate.

She also worked as secretary of the Purey Cust Nursing Home.

Her favourite hobby was world travel, and she visited China in its very early days of welcoming foreigners, as well as Patagonia and Turkey.

"She was a woman of wide cultural interests, and her sense of civic responsibility made a very great impression indeed," said Mr Fairbairn.

A memorial service will be held for Miss Willoughby at York Minster on July 19, at 11.30am.

Updated: 14:14 Thursday, June 14, 2001