{{Short description|English ambulance driver (1888–1993)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox military person | name = Sadie Bonnell | image = SADIE BONNELL, OF THE FIRST AID NURSING YEOMANRY, JULY 1918.jpg | caption = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1888|06|04|df=yes}} | death_date = {{Death date and age|1993|09|02|1888|06|04|df=yes}} | birth_place = Kew, Surrey | death_place = | allegiance = United Kingdom | branch = First Aid Nursing Yeomanry | unit = Canadian Army Service Corps | commands = | battles = First World War | battles_label = | awards = Military Medal }} '''Sara Talbot''' {{postnominals|country=GBR|MM}} (née '''Bonnell, also Marriott''';<ref>{{Cite book |first=Great |last=Britain |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/944020358 |title=London gazette. |date=2010 |publisher=Nabu Press |isbn=978-1-172-03895-4 |oclc=944020358}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Lest we forget: Sadie Talbot, one of the first women to be awarded the Military Medal – obituary |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/0/lest-forget-sadie-talbot-first-british-woman-awarded-military/ |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=5 November 2018 |access-date=21 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116011051/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/0/lest-forget-sadie-talbot-first-british-woman-awarded-military/ |archive-date=16 November 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="WG" /> 4 June 1888 – 2 September 1993), also known as '''Sadie Bonnell,''' was a British ambulance and supply driver in the First World War. She was awarded the Military Medal for her work in France with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. She died at the age of 105. ==Biography== Sara "Sadie" Bonnell was born in Kew, Surrey, on 4 June 1888. She was educated at Bedales, a co-educational school. After leaving school she lived at home. During the First World War, she wanted to become an ambulance driver but was not allowed to do so by the authorities since she was a woman. Instead, she drove ambulances in London for the Canadian Army Service Corps. She later joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) in December 1917, and was sent to Unit 8, a joint FANY/VAD ambulance convoy attached to the British 2nd Army, based at St Omer. The FANYs had been founded in 1907 as an all-women mounted volunteer corps. By the outbreak of war in 1914, they had shifted into motorised ambulance work, also working for the Belgian and French Armies.<ref name="ODNB">{{Cite ODNB|id=53365|title=Talbot [née Bonnell], Sara [Sadie]}}</ref> Bonnell showed great courage during the East End Air Raid. She was driving an ambulance in 1916 during some of the first air raids London experienced.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}
Bonnell earned the Military Medal on the night of 18–19 May 1918 when she was based in a large camp on the road to Arques in France.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Home |url=https://www.fany.org.uk/ |access-date=2025-03-04 |website=www.fany.org.uk}}</ref> She collected wounded men near from a dressing station near Saint-Omer whilst under heavy German bombardment for five hours.<ref name="ODNB" /> The enemy's shells had set a nearby ammunition dump on fire. She returned again and again with Evelyn Brown, a volunteer Canadian, succeeding in removing all the wounded.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Home |url=https://www.fany.org.uk/ |access-date=2025-03-04 |website=www.fany.org.uk}}</ref> She was decorated by the commander of British Second Army, General Sir Herbert Plumer, 1st Viscount Plumer.<ref name="ODNB" />
After the war, Bonnell returned to England in 1919 and worked in hospitals as a volunteer. She loved fast cars and between the wars drove a six-cylinder AC with a red fish mascot on the bonnet which echoed the FANY logo.<ref name="ODNB" />
==Personal life and death== Bonnell married Herbert Marriott on 1 September 1919.<ref name="ODNB" /> They had met in France where he was with the 2nd Army, where he was involved in a poison gas attack. She said he proposed to her whilst they were under enemy fire in France.<ref name="WG">{{cite book |last1=Lee |first1=Janet |title=War Girls: The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in the Great War |date=2005 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=9780719067129 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QQVdIPCf6VEC&q=%22Sadie+Talbot%22+%22Military+Medal%22&pg=PA249}}</ref> He died in 1921 during the influenza pandemic. She later married again in 1948, to Charles Leslie Talbot, who died in 1967. She had no children herself and was devoted to her nieces and nephew.<ref name="ODNB" /> She spent the Second World War in Sussex and knew A. A. Milne and his son, Christopher Robin.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}
In the 1920s, Bonnell designed and built a house called "Thrushling" in Upper Hartfield, Sussex.<ref name="ODNB" /> After she sold it, she revisited it and reviled the owners for covering her beautiful parquet floor with a carpet. She spent her final years at Dorset House, Droitwich.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}
At 95, she regretted that she could no longer drive fast cars.<ref name="ODNB" /> She received a telegram from the Queen on her hundredth birthday on 4 June 1988.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}} She died at the age of 105 on 2 September 1993 and her funeral was attended by members of FANY. Her obituary appeared in the ''Daily Telegraph'', ''The Independent'' and ''The Times''.<ref name="ODNB" />
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
==Sources== * Sadie Bonnell personal papers, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) Archives, London SW1
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonnell, Sadie}} Category:1888 births Category:1993 deaths Category:British women centenarians Category:British women in World War I Category:Canadian military personnel of World War I Category:Military personnel from Surrey Category:Military nursing Category:People educated at Bedales School Category:People from Kew, London Category:People from Surrey (before 1889) Category:Recipients of the Military Medal Category:Royal Canadian Army Service Corps soldiers