author
1857–1946
A lively late-Victorian journalist and biographer, she wrote about remarkable women and the worlds they shaped. Her books on Florence Nightingale and the history of nursing helped bring women's work and public influence into clearer view.
by Sarah A. Tooley
Born in Staffordshire in 1857, Sarah A. Tooley studied literature at University College London and, after her 1882 marriage to the minister George W. Tooley, built a career in journalism. She became known as a skilled interviewer and writer with a strong interest in women whose lives challenged expectations.
She contributed to periodicals including The Woman's Signal and Woman at Home, and wrote biographical sketches of women working across many fields. Her best-known books include The Life of Florence Nightingale (1905) and The History of Nursing in the British Empire (1906), works that reflect her lasting interest in public service, reform, and women's achievements.
Tooley died in 1946. Although she is not widely read today, her writing offers a vivid glimpse of how women writers and journalists helped record and shape public life at the turn of the twentieth century.