(Eleanor) Margaret Burbidge, née Peachey, was born at Davenport, Cheshire, on 12 August 1919. After attending University College London, she became Assistant Director, then Director, of the University of London's Mill Hill Observatory. She married Geoffrey Burbidge, a theoretical astrophysicist, in 1948. After joining the Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago in 1951, she used its 40-inch refractor to study stars with anomalous lines of heavy elements. In 1955 the Burbidges joined the Mount Wilson Observatory in California, where Mrs Burbidge carried out the measurement of the masses and rotation of galaxies and pioneered the study of quasars. In 1957 she co-authored the important 'B2FH paper' with her husband, William Alfred Fowler and Fred Hoyle, regarding the origin of elements in supernovae. In 1964 she was appointed Professor of Astronomy at the University of California, San Diego.

Mrs Burbidge became Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in 1972, following the retirement of Sir Richard Woolley. The Observatory was in a state of flux at the time owing to a reorganisation caused by the plans for the Northern Hemisphere Observatory and the Anglo-Australian Telescope. Margaret was closely involved as Director in the arrangements for bringing the A.A.T. into operation. Other developments during her time in office included updating and improving the Isaac Newton Telescope and the introduction of an infra-red group. She was also responsible for directing the work of the Observatory to objects outside the Milky Way.

Mrs Burbidge resigned as Director in 1973 following policy disagreements. She was subsequently President of the American Astronomical Society (1976-1978) and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1983).