Sarah Baring
{{Short description|English socialite and memoirist (1920–2013)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| honorific_prefix = The Honourable
| name = Sarah Baring
| image = File:Sarah Baring.jpg
| caption = Sarah Baring as a debutante, aged 18
| birthname = Hon. Sarah Kathleen Elinor Norton
| birth_date = 20 January 1920
| birth_place =
| death_date = {{dda|2013|2|4|1920|1|20|df=y}}
| death_place =
| occupation = Socialite, wartime linguist
| spouse = {{plainlist|
- {{marriage|William Astor, 3rd Viscount Astor|1945|1953|end=div}}
- {{marriage|Lt-Col Thomas Baring|1953|1965|end=div}}
}}
| children = William Astor, 4th Viscount Astor
| parents = Richard Norton, 6th Baron Grantley
Jean Mary Kinloch
}}
Sarah Kathleen Elinor Baring (née Norton; 20 January 1920 – 4 February 2013) was an English socialite and memoirist, who worked for three years as a linguist at Bletchley Park, the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. She was married to William Astor, 3rd Viscount Astor, from 1945 to 1953.
Early life
Sarah Kathleen Elinor Norton was born on 20 January 1920, the daughter of the filmmaker Richard Norton, 6th Baron Grantley, and his wife, Jean Mary (née Kinloch). At the age of 17 her parents sent her to Munich, where she learned fluent German. Sarah recalled often seeing Adolf Hitler and aides at a tea house; she and a friend made funny faces at the group. Despite the "terrible feeling of fear" in the city they were not disturbed, Sarah said, because the Germans knew that they were English and wanted to maintain good British-German relations.{{cite web |author= |date=15 February 2013 |title=Sarah Baring |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9873999/Sarah-Baring.html |accessdate=11 October 2017 |publisher= |via=www.telegraph.co.uk}}
Career
{{See also|List of people associated with Bletchley Park}}
File:BletchleyPark Hut4 01.JPG
During the war, she worked for Vogue and the Baltimore Sun for a short time, then as a telephonist at an Air Raid Precautions Centre, before building Hurricane fighter planes at a Hawker Siddeley factory close to Slough. She recalled of this time “I hadn’t expected the work there to be quite as hard as it was, but we were fired up with the desire to make aeroplanes”.
She shared a cottage with a colleague Osla Benning. They were both god-daughters of Lord Louis Mountbatten, who suggested to Sarah that she might "find a nice girl" for his nephew, Prince Philip. Sarah introduced Benning, and she became Prince Philip's first girlfriend.
A few months later, Baring and Benning were both tested on their German language skills, and were posted to Hut 4 at Bletchley Park. They were also billeted together at the White Horse Inn.{{Cite book |last=Trumpington |first=Jean |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gElVAwAAQBAJ&dq=Osla+Benning&pg=PA46 |title=Coming Up Trumps: A Memoir |date=2014-04-24 |publisher=Pan Macmillan |isbn=978-1-4472-5677-9 |pages=46 |language=en}} On a rare day off Baring would catch the express train to London in order to meet with friends at Claridge's.{{Cite web |last=National Archives |date=2013-07-12 |title=The National Archives - The secret listeners {{!}} The National Archives |url=https://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/the-secret-listeners/ |access-date=2024-10-03 |website=Archives Media Player |language=en-GB}} After working at Bletchley Park she was later transferred to the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre.{{Cite news |last=Joseph |first=Claudia |date=14 July 2002 |title=Revealed: the careless mistake by Bletchley's Enigma code-crackers that cost Allied lives |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/revealed-the-careless-mistake-by-bletchley-s-enigma-codecrackers-that-cost-allied-lives-5360971.html |access-date=3 October 2024 |work=Independent}}
Later life
In her later years, Baring wrote a memoir about her time in pre-war London society and at Bletchley Park, [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5QUczgEACAAJ&dq=Sarah+Baring&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-kpKv_vCIAxWfZ0EAHdYbCAUQ6AF6BAgHEAI The Road To Station X].{{cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-queen-as-enigma-women-for-whom-action-was-in-vogue-paper-memories-and-opera-moments-9053626.html|title=The Queen as enigma, women for whom action was in vogue, paper|author=|date=12 January 2014|website=independent.co.uk|accessdate=11 October 2017}}
Personal life
On VE-Day, she attended a cocktail party given by her aunt Lady Brownlow, and was introduced to William Waldorf Astor, eldest son of the 2nd Viscount Astor and his wife, Nancy Astor, the MP. They were engaged after five days, and married a month later on 14 June 1945. She supported his political campaigning.{{Cite book |last=McKay |first=Sinclair |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xXVMAQAAQBAJ&dq=Sarah+Baring&pg=PA152 |title=The Lost World of Bletchley Park: An Illustrated History of the Wartime Codebreaking Centre |date=2013-11-01 |publisher=Aurum Press |isbn=978-1-78131-191-2 |pages=152 |language=en}}
Their son, William Astor, 4th Viscount Astor, was born in 1951. Her son later became the stepfather of Samantha Cameron. The couple amicably divorced in 1953, after which she married Lt-Col Thomas Michael Baring, a former 10th Royal Hussars officer, polo player, and fine art consultant. The Barings divorced in 1965.
References
{{Reflist}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baring, Sarah}}
Category:20th-century British linguists
Category:20th-century English people
Category:20th-century English women
Category:21st-century English memoirists
Category:21st-century English women writers
Category:English women memoirists