Sarah Wilson

Lady Sarah Isabella Augusta Wilson (née Spencer-Churchill) was born on 4 July 1865 at Blenheim Palace. She was the youngest of eleven children of John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, and Lady Frances Vane, daughter of the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry. Her siblings included George Spencer-Churchill, 8th Duke of Marlborough; Lord Randolph Churchill; and Anne, Duchess of Roxburghe.

She married Gordon Chesney Wilson, a member of the Royal Horse Guards, son of Jennie Campbell and Sir Samuel Wilson, MP. The couple had one son, Randolph Gordon Wilson, born in 1893. Gordon Chesney Wilson was killed in action on 6 November 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres.

Lady Sarah Wilson became one of the first female war correspondents in 1899 when she was recruited by the Daily Mail to cover the Siege of Mafeking during the Second Boer War. Her opportunity arose after Ralph Hellawell, a fellow correspondent, was arrested by Boer forces while attempting to send dispatches out of the besieged town. Wilson was in Mafeking with her husband, Captain Gordon Chesney Wilson, who served as aide-de-camp to Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, the commanding officer at Mafeking.

Baden-Powell requested her to leave Mafeking for her safety after Boer forces threatened to storm the British garrison. She then traveled through the South African landscape accompanied by her maid, was captured by Boer forces, and later exchanged for a horse thief held in Mafeking. Upon returning to the town, she found that it had not been attacked; instead, extensive defensive measures, including over 6 kilometers of trenches and 800 bomb shelters, had been constructed. During her stay, she assisted in nursing at a convalescent hospital and was slightly wounded when the town was shelled.

On 26 March 1900, she reported on the ongoing siege, describing heavy shelling and casualties among British troops. Despite the war's violence, her reports highlighted social activities such as cycling events and public celebrations, including Colonel Baden-Powell’s birthday. As the siege persisted and food supplies dwindled, the situation worsened, including an outbreak of malarial typhoid. Boer forces managed to breach the peripheral defenses, but the British forces succeeded in repelling the attack. The siege concluded after 217 days when the relief forces arrived on 17 May 1900, in an event celebrated publicly in Mafeking and in London.

In May 1901, Lady Sarah Wilson was invested as a Dame of Grace of The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem. In December 1901, King Edward VII awarded her the Royal Red Cross for her service during the siege. She revisited South Africa with her sister, Countess Howe, from September to November 1902, with her sister's involvement in fundraising for the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital.

During the First World War, Lady Sarah Wilson operated a hospital for injured soldiers in Boulogne, France. She received news of her husband's death at Klein Zillebeke during the conflict. Her husband's personal effects were sent to her by his brother Herbert. Among his belongings, she found a newspaper clipping with lines from William Shakespeare's "The Two Noble Kinsmen": "Life is a city of crooked streets/Death the marketplace where all men meet," which she chose for his headstone.

Lady Sarah Isabella Augusta Wilson died on 22 October 1929.