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 would embark on a career as a writer, with her first novel, Selah Harrison, published in 1898. The best known of her works were The Fortune of Christina M'Nab, A Lame Dog's Diary, and The Expensive Miss Du Cane. She became well-travelled, journeying, among other locations, to Canada, South America, South Africa, the Middle East and India. Sarah participated in the women's suffrage movement, aided victims of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, 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. For her work under fire in Belgium, she received the Order of Leopold. 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, she fell ill during the trip through Persia and had to return to England, where she died from her illness. She was buried in the family plot in Chart Sutton. An unfinished manuscript became the basis for her book, My Canadian Memories, which was finished by her friend Beatrice Home and published in 1920. Macnaughton Road in Leaside, now part of Toronto, was named after her in payment for her writing services.
Media portrayal
Sarah Macnaughtan is one of the 14 main characters in the series14 - Diaries of the Great War, 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.
