Margaret Hill (1924-1975). British ballerina

Margaret Hill joined Ballet Rambert in 1944, at the age of 15. She was a principal dancer with Rambert, specialising in dramatic roles, but in 1952 moved to the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet (SWTB). In 1953 she created the main role in Kenneth MacMillan’s Somnambulism, his first ballet. From 1954 to 1955 she with back with Ballet Rambert, returning to SWTB again in 1956, when she appeared in MacMillan’s Solitaire, once again creating the main role. She has been described as MacMillan’s first muse, before Lynn Seymour, and by Peter Wright as ‘a superb artist’, who ‘did not really fit into the required Royal Ballet mould’. In 1957 Margaret Hill transferred to Covent Garden to dance with The Royal Ballet, but retired in 1959 to marry the fellow dancer, Michael Boulton. Margaret Hill died in 1975.