Sarah Macnaughtan

Background

Born in Partick, Scotland, the fourth daughter and sixth child of Peter Macnaughtan and Julia Blackman, she was home schooled by her father.

Career

During the outbreak of the First World War, she volunteered with the Red Cross Society and was sent to Russia and eventually Armenia. She wrote extensively about the plight of the Armenian refugees of the Armenian Genocide. She died due to an illness she contracted while abroad.

There she would embark on a career as a writer, with her first novel, Selah Harrison, being published in 1898.

She became well-traveled, journeying to, among other locations, Canada, South America, South Africa, the Middle East and India. Sarah participated in the women"s suffrage movement, aided victims of the Balkan war, performed social services for the poor in London"s East End, and worked for the Red Cross during the Second Boer War.

During the outbreak of the First World War, she volunteered with the Red Cross Society. In September 1914 she travelled to Antwerp in Belgium as part of an ambulance unit

Following the evacuation of the city, she provided assistance in northern France, opening a soup kitchen in Adinkerke.

Later in the war she began a journey to Russia where she planned to provide medical assistance. She moved on to Yerevan, Armenia where there was a refugee crisis due the Armenian Genocide. Macnaughtan reported that Yerevan, with a population of 30,000, had approximately 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, during the trip through Persia she became ill and had to return to England, where she died from her illness.

She was buried in the family plot in Chart Sutton. MacNaughtan Road in Leaside was named after her in payment for her writing services.

Sarah Macnaughtan is one of the 14 main characters of the series 14 - Diaries of the Great War. She is played by actress Celia Bannerman.

The documentary portrays her activities in Tiflis and Armenia.

Achievements

• Foreign her work under fire in Belgium, she received the Order of Leopold.

Connections

Friend:

My Canadian