Mary Cosh

Ethel Eleanor Mary Cosh, FSA (3 March 1919 – 17 December 2019) was a British freelance journalist and local historian who was known for her works on the history of Islington, London.

During the Second World War she served with the Women's Royal Naval Service from 1942 to 1945 where she became a Leading Wren.

After the war she read English at St Anne's College, University of Oxford, graduating with a BA in 1949.

One of these authors was James Leasor for whom she researched The Red Fort, War at the Top and The Plague and the Fire.

That work dealt with the social and cultural life of Edinburgh during the Scottish Enlightenment, covering the period 1760 to 1832 and drawing on contemporary accounts in literature, newspapers, letters and journals.