:Oriana Wilson

Oriana Souper was born in Bradfield, Berkshire, in circa 1874{{refn | group = "nb" |Sources differ; 1873{{cite book|title=With Scott in the Antarctic: Edward Wilson: Explorer, Naturalist, Artist| first=Isobel| last=Williams| year=2011|publisher=The History Press|isbn=9780752473529}} or 1876{{cite web|url=https://www.horniman.ac.uk/collections/browse-our-collections/authority/agent/identifier/agent-11415| title=Oriana Fanny Wilson | website=Horniman Museum & Gardens| access-date=15 April 2019}} have been claimed but her birth was registered in 1874 and she was christened at Bradfield on 18 October 1874}} as the oldest child of Fanny Emmeline ({{nee|Beaumont}}) and Francis Abraham Souper, a clergyman and headmaster of Bradfield College. The 1881 census listed her as six years old with three younger siblings, James F. T., Noel Beaumont, and Constance.{{cite book|publisher=Xlibris Corporation| title=Imperial Vancouver Island: Who Was Who, 1850–1950| first=J. F. |last=Bosher| year=2010| isbn=9781450059633| page=689}} At age twelve, her mother died, which left her to care for the household.{{cite journal |title=Obituaries |journal=Polar Record |date=1945 |volume=4 |issue=30 |page=290 |doi=10.1017/S0032247400042133 |doi-access=free }}

Before her marriage, she worked as a matron at a prep school in Cheltenham.{{cite web|url=https://lady.co.uk/marriage-post| title=Marriage by post|website=The Lady|first=Katherine| last= MacInnes| access-date=15 April 2019}}

Reverend George Seaver described Wilson as "a good field naturalist and blest with a quick and lively observation", saying that she, like her husband, had a particular affinity for birds.

Wilson collected the holotype for the Australasian bent-wing bat, for which Oldfield Thomas named the species Miniopterus orianae.{{cite journal|doi=10.1080/00222932208632816|title=LXVI.—A new bat of the genus Miniopterus from N. Australia|journal=Annals and Magazine of Natural History|volume=10|issue=60|pages=616–617|year=1922|last1=Thomas|first1=Oldfield|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1971231}}

In 1914, Leiper and Atkinson named a cestode genus after her, Oriana, with the type species of the genus as Oriana wilsoni.{{cite journal|last1=Campbell| first1= W. C.| last2=Overstreet| first2= R. M.| year=1994| title= Historical basis of binomials assigned to helminths collected on Scott's last Antarctic expedition| journal= Journal of the Helminthological Society of Washington| volume= 61| issue=1| pages= 1–11|url=http://bionames.org/bionames-archive/issn/1049-233X/61/1.pdf}} However, Oriana was recognised as a synonym of Tetrabothrius, so the species was renamed as T. wilsoni.{{cite web|url=http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1052668| title=Tetrabothrius (Oriana) wilsoni Leiper & Atkinson, 1914| website=WoRMS|access-date=15 April 2019|date=27 December 2017 }}

During the First World War, Wilson worked to provide comforts to New Zealand troops in Britain. She was awarded the Commander of the British Empire in the 1918 New Year Honours{{London Gazette|issue=30576 |supp=y| date=12 March 1918|page=3284}} in recognition of her "signal services". The award was given mainly in association with her work as honorary secretary of the Hospital Comforts Committee,{{cite news|url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTIM19180518.2.26?query=oriana%20wilson%20-liner&page=2&start_date=01-07-1914&end_date=31-12-1919&snippet=true| title=Notes for Women: Services of New Zealanders|work=New Zealand Times| date=18 May 1918|volume=43|issue=9974}} which came under the New Zealand Red Cross.{{cite book|url=http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH1-Effo-t1-body-d11.html| title=The War Effort of New Zealand|chapter=Chapter XI. — War Relief and Patriotic Societies|page=186|first=L. O. H.| last= Tripp|year=1923|publisher=Whitcombe and Tombs Limited}}

Wilson destroyed much of her personal correspondence, so details of her later life are few. However, she seemed to have travelled extensively through East Africa based on surviving correspondence to Apsley Cherry-Garrard.{{cite web|url=http://oldafricamagazine.com/the-oriana-wilson-trail/| website=Old Africa| title=The Oriana Wilson Trail| first=Shel| last=Arensen|date=22 May 2012| access-date=16 April 2019}} She also travelled to an area south of Port Darwin, Australia, that had been previously unvisited by Western women.

She died in a nursing home in Finchley, London, England on 25 April 1945.{{cite web |title=Oriana Wilson collection |url=https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/664d2a28-3888-34ed-af90-f1d969448470 |website=Archives Hub|access-date=15 April 2019}}

In 1897, she met Edward Adrian Wilson, at Caius House, Battersea, while he was conducting mission work in London. They married on 16 July 1901, three weeks before Edward left on the Antarctic Discovery Expedition; the sledging flag she sewed for him was, after his death, displayed in Gloucester Cathedral{{cite news |title=Explorer Edward Wilson's sledge flag returns to Gloucester Cathedral |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-18705582 |accessdate=18 April 2019 |work=BBC News |date=5 July 2012}} and is now in the collection of the Scott Polar Research Institute.{{cite web |title=Sledging flag |url=https://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/catalogue/article/n274/ |website=Spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/ |publisher=SPRI |accessdate=16 April 2019}}{{cite web |title=Edward Wilson's sledge flag |url=http://stretchedwings.com/MainPages/AltGallery/Sledge/N.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190418124521/http://stretchedwings.com/MainPages/AltGallery/Sledge/N.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=18 April 2019 |website=Stretched wings towards the South The Flags of the British Antartic {{sic|hide=y}} Expedition 1910–13 |accessdate=18 April 2019}} The wedding was in Hilton, Huntingdonshire, where her father was vicar.{{cite book |last1=Seaver |first1=George |title=Edward Wilson Of The Antarctic |publisher=John Murray |page=76 |url=https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.175884/2015.175884.Edward-Wilson-Of-The-Antarctic_djvu.txt |accessdate=16 April 2019}}{{cite news |title=Fashionable Weddings |work=Cheltenham Chronicle |date=20 July 1901}}

Wilson was widowed by her husband's death on the Terra Nova Expedition in March 1912. Fundraising efforts for families of those who died on the expedition were enormously successful, especially considering that only five men died. The Mansion House raised £75,000 in 1912, {{Inflation|UK|75,000|1912|2018|fmt=eq|r=-5}}.{{cite book|last=Jones| first=Max| year=2004| title=The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott's Antarctic Sacrifice| publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=9780192805706|pages=107–108}} As a widow, Wilson's income included £300 annually in a government pension ({{Inflation|UK|300|1912|2018|fmt=eq|r=-1}}); £8,500 as a one-time payment from the Mansion House trust ({{Inflation|UK|8,500|1912|2018|fmt=eq|r=-2}}); and a £636 salary from the British Antarctic Expedition ({{Inflation|UK|636|1912|2018|fmt=eq|r=-1}}).

The loss of her husband was a blow to her faith, though she maintained it until the death of her brother during the Battle of the Somme. She did not remarry and had no children.

In New Zealand, she maintained a correspondence with poet Ursula Bethell.{{cite book|title=The Ponies| first=Bernadette| last=Hall| page=81| publisher=Victoria University Press| year=2007}}

In 2013, Katherine MacInnes published a book about Wilson entitled Love and Death and Mrs Bill: a play about Oriana, wife of Polar explorer Edward Wilson.{{cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/880876327| title=Love and death and Mrs Bill: a play about Oriana, wife of Polar explorer Edward Wilson| via=WorldCat| oclc=880876327|access-date=16 April 2019}}

Wilson was portrayed by Anne Firth in the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic,{{cite web |url=https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0040761/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cst_sm |title=Scott of the Antarctic - Full cast and crew |author= |date= |work=IMDb |access-date=26 April 2025}} and by Sue Robinson in the 1985 television serial The Last Place on Earth.{{cite web |url=https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0088551/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cst_sm |title=The Last Place on Earth - Full cast and crew |author= |date= |work=IMDb |access-date=26 April 2025}}

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Category:1870s births

Category:1945 deaths

Category:New Zealand Commanders of the Order of the British Empire

Category:Red Cross personnel

Category:20th-century British naturalists

Category:Women naturalists

Category:People from Bradfield, Berkshire