Margaret Mountford
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Margaret Rose Mountford (''
née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...
'' Swale, born 24 November 1951) is a British lawyer, businesswoman, academic and television personality from Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland, best known for her role in the
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series '' The Apprentice''.


Biography

Mountford is originally from Holywood, County Down.Apprentice star fires up NI women
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, 23 May 2007
She was educated at the voluntary grammar school, Strathearn School, in
Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...
, then at Girton College,
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
. Mountford spent a number of years as a lawyer with Herbert Smith, before taking on roles as non-executive director at
Amstrad Amstrad plc was a British consumer electronics company, founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar. During the 1980s, the company was known for its Home computer, home computers beginning with the Amstrad CPC and later also the ZX Spectrum range after the ...
and Georgica. She chairs the board of governors of St Marylebone, an inner-London
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
Comprehensive School.Spying for Sir Alan
The Guardian, 28 March 2007
After Mountford retired in 1999 she completed a degree in Ancient World Studies at University College London and then an MA degree in Classics. In April 2012, Mountford completed her PhD degree in Papyrology at University College, London, with her thesis entitled ''Documentary papyri from Roman And Byzantine Oxyrhynchus''. Mountford also chairs the Bright Ideas Trust which was set up by the first Apprentice winner Tim Campbell, and helps young people start their own businesses.


Television

From 2005 to 2009, Mountford was one of Alan Sugar's advisers, alongside Nick Hewer, in the UK version of '' The Apprentice'' television show, a role with which she achieved increasing public popularity. Mountford also took part on the panel in ''The Apprentice - You're Fired'' on 27 May 2009 for the first time, during which she hinted that Lorraine would not make the final. In June 2009, Mountford announced she was leaving the show at the end of Series 5 in order to concentrate on her PhD and was replaced for Series 6 by businesswoman Karren Brady. She returned in the 2010 series, for the interview stage, helping Alan Sugar narrow down the candidates to the final two. Mountford returned for the Apprentice Finals in 2011, 2012 and 2013, again as an interviewer. Between April 2012 and November 2017, Mountford appeared on
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
's '' Countdown'' in Dictionary Corner, presented by her fellow Apprentice adviser Nick Hewer. In March 2013, Mountford presented a one-off BBC documentary programme ''Pompeii: The Mystery of the People Frozen in Time''. In July 2013, Mountford co-presented a two-part BBC One documentary with Hewer entitled ''We All Pay Your Benefits'', filmed in Ipswich, the show investigated the benefit culture. In October 2013, she presented a BBC Two Northern Ireland documentary called ''Groundbreakers: Ulster's Forgotten Radical'', which highlighted the forgotten women's rights campaigner from the 19th century, Isabella Tod. On 15 and 16 July 2014, Mountford co-presented a BBC One documentary with Hewer entitled ''Nick and Margaret: Too many Immigrants?'' which researched the impact of and attitudes towards immigrants in the UK and London. Between 24 and 28 November 2014, Mountford presented a BBC One programme entitled ''Don't Mess with Me'' which displayed the challenges that the public and Councils in the UK face against littering, as well as convincing the public to pick up their rubbish and take a stand to the problem. The programme considered scientific research into the problem as well as preventative action. In December 2015, Mountford appeared, alongside Nick Hewer, in BBC's '' Celebrity Antiques Road Trip''. In 2015, she appeared alongside Nick Hewer on a BBC Panorama show investigating the punctuality of trains on the British Rail network. The show involved them using the rail network, listening to passenger stories and talking to experts in the industry. In May 2019, she presented a programme on the Classical poet Sappho on BBC Four titled "Sappho: Love & Life on Lesbos with Margaret Mountford".


Classicist

Mountford is currently on the Steering Committee for the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies and is the Chair of the Egypt Exploration Society. In January 2019, Mountford gave a lecture at Haileybury titled "Papyrology – From Rubbish Bins to Riches", and in June 2019 she gave a lecture hosted by the British School at Athens and the Egypt Exploration Society titled "Papyrology: is anything new under the sun?".


Publications

*2012.
Documentary papyri from Roman And Byzantine Oxyrhynchus
' (PhD Thesis). University College London *2012. "A day at the races in Byzantine Oxyrhynchus", ''Egyptian Archaeology'' 41: 5–7.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mountford, Margaret 1951 births Living people The Apprentice (British TV series) Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge Alumni of University College London British businesspeople British solicitors People from Holywood, County Down British television personalities Protestants from Northern Ireland People educated at Strathearn School British women lawyers British women classical scholars Papyrologists