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Dame Sibyl Mary Hathaway, DBE (née Collings; 13 January 1884 – 14 July 1974) was Dame of Sark from 1927 until her death. Her 47-year tenure spanned the reigns of four overlords: George V, Edward VIII, George VI and Elizabeth II. Hathaway was a financially troubled widow with six children when she succeeded her eccentric father, William Frederick Collings, as feudal lord of Sark, one of the small Channel Islands. She immediately set about reinforcing her feudal rights and promoting tourism on the island, which she affectionately called "the last bastion of feudalism". When she remarried in 1929, her second husband, Robert Hathaway, legally became her senior co-ruler, but she kept control of the government. Hathaway's tenure as dame saw the German occupation of the Channel Islands in the Second World War, during which she refused to evacuate and convinced the islanders to stay as well. Her eldest son and heir apparent, Francis William Beaumont, was killed in 1941, while her husband was deported to a Nazi concentration camp in 1943. Hathaway remains best known for her indomitable conduct during the occupation. After the war, she continued her publicity campaign, strengthening the island's tourism industry. Having been widowed again in 1954, she went on to rule alone, and was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1965. She was described by a British government official as a "lady of unusual personality", and is often referred to as a benevolent dictator. Dame Sibyl died at the age of 90, and was succeeded by her grandson, Michael Beaumont. ==Early life== Sibyl Mary Hathway was born in Guernsey in a house that once belonged to John Allaire, her privateering great-great-grandfather, whose business dealings brought the fief of Sark to his daughter, Marie Collings. Her parents were William Frederick Collings and his Montreal-born wife Sophie (née Moffatt). Sibyl was born two years after her notoriously intemperant father inherited the fief from his father, William Thomas Collings. Sibyl had one sibling, a sister named Doris.〔 Collings treated Hathaway, his heir presumptive, as if she were a boy. She was lame due to unequal leg length, but that did not prevent her father from insisting on teaching her to shoot, sail, and climb cliffs.〔 Collings never allowed his daughters to complain of pain or sadness; Hathaway was later grateful for "being able to live a life free of the inconvenience of self-pity". As the future ruler of an island situated between France and the United Kingdom, she learned standard French and the local Sercquiais dialect of the Norman language. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sibyl Hathaway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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