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Muriel Horsfall, a passionate mathematics educator, has left a bequest of $650,000 to The University of Western Australia.

This bequest will seed the establishment of a Chair in Mathematics Education at UWA and the university aims to raise another 2.5 million dollars in 2011, UWA’s Year of Mathematics, to create the chair in perpetuity.

Muriel taught Mathematics in Western Australia, Tasmania, New South Wales and England. She retired in 1955 to Tasmania where she remained until her death in 2009, aged 102.

Muriel and her two sisters, Margaret and Constance, attended Perth Modern School and then studied for degrees in Arts followed by Diplomas in Education at The University of Western Australia.

All went on to become highly respected educators. The three Horsfall sisters were determined to assist other young people, as they had been helped, by funding bursaries in memory of their parents.