Sarah Broom Macnaughtan (26 October 1864 – 24 July 1916) was a Scottish novelist. With the outbreak of the
First World War, she volunteered with the
Red Cross Society and was sent to
Russia, then
Armenia. She wrote much about the plight of refugees from the
Armenian genocide. She died of an illness contracted while abroad.
Life
Born in
Partick, Scotland, the fourth daughter and sixth child of Peter Macnaughtan and Julia Blackman,
she was educated at home by her father.
After her parents died, she moved to Kent in England, then to London.
There she began a writing career with her first novel, ''Selah Harrison'', published in 1898. Her best-known works were ''The Fortune of Christina M'Nab'' (1901), ''A Lame Dog's Diary'' (1905), and ''The Expensive Miss Du Cane'' (1900).
Meanwhile she travelled to Canada, South America, South Africa, the Middle East and India, among other locations.
Sarah took part in the women's suffrage movement, aided victims of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, performed social services for
London's East End
The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...
poor and worked for the
Red Cross in the
Second Boer War.
With the outbreak of the
First World War, she volunteered with the
Red Cross Society.
In September 1914 she travelled to
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, , Belgium, as part of an ambulance unit.
After the evacuation of the city, she gave assistance in northern France,
opening a soup kitchen in
Adinkerke.
For her work under fire in Belgium, she received the
Order of Leopold Order of Leopold may refer to:
* Order of Leopold (Austria), founded in 1808 by emperor Francis I of Austria and discontinued in 1918
* Order of Leopold (Belgium), founded in 1832 by king Leopold I of Belgium
* Order of Leopold II, founded in Congo ...
.
Later in the war she moved to Russia, planning to provide medical assistance. She moved on to
Yerevan,
Armenia, where there was a refugee crisis after the
Armenian genocide. Macnaughtan reported that Yerevan, with a population of 30,000, had about 17,000 refugees. She noted in her diary: "These unfortunate people have been nearly exterminated by massacres, and it has been officially stated that 75 per cent of the whole race has been put to the sword."
However, she fell ill on a trip through Persia
and had to return to England, where she died from the illness.
She was buried in the family plot in
Chart Sutton
Chart Sutton is a civil parish and small village on the edge of the Weald of Kent, England. It lies approximately to the south of Maidstone.
The village is small, with around 800 inhabitants, but has a village hall, a pop-up shop and a park; al ...
.
An unfinished manuscript of hers became the basis for a book, ''My Canadian Memories'', which was finished by her friend Beatrice Home and published in 1920.
Macnaughton
icRoad in Leaside, now part of
Toronto, was named after her for her writing services.
Media portrayal
Sarah Macnaughtan is one of the 14 main characters in the series ''
14 - Diaries of the Great War
''14 - Diaries of the Great War'' (titled ''Great War Diaries'' when aired on the BBC) is a 2014 international documentary drama series about World War I. It uses a mix of acted scenes, archive footage, and animation. All episodes were directed b ...
'', played by actress
Celia Bannerman. The documentary portrays her activities in Tiflis and Armenia. She is the only protagonist to die during the conflict, though this is actually not revealed until the very end, when birth and death dates are listed.
Bibliography
*''Selah Harrison''
(1899)
*''The expensive Miss Du Cane''
(1900)
*''The fortune of Christina M'Nab''
(1901)
*''A lame dog's diary: a novel'' (1905)
*''Three Miss Graemes'' (1908)
*''Us four'' (1909)
*''The Andersons'' (1910)
*''Four-Chimneys: a novel'' (1912)
*''Peter and Jane, or, The missing heir'' (1912)
*''Snow upon the desert'' (1913)
*''A green Englishman, and other stories of Canada'' (1914)
*''They who question'' (1914)
*''A woman's diary of the war'' (1915)
*''Some elderly people & their young friends'' (1915)
*''My war experiences in two continents'' (1919)
*''My Canadian memories''
(1920) with Beatrice Home.
See also
*
Witnesses and testimonies of the Armenian genocide
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macnaughtan, Sarah Broom
1864 births
1916 deaths
Writers from Glasgow
Scottish women novelists
Witnesses of the Armenian genocide
Red Cross personnel
Scottish memoirists