Lady Sybil Cora Branson (June 1895-August 1920) was a British aristocrat, the daughter of Robert Crawley, 7th Earl of Grantham, and the wife of the Irish socialist activist Tom Branson.
Biography[]
Sybil Crawley was born in Downton Abbey, Yorkshire in 1895, the third and youngest daughter of Robert Crawley, 7th Earl of Grantham and his Jewish-American wife Cora Levinson, and the sister of Mary and Edith. She became very politically conscious from a young age, considering the lives and feelings of the underprivileged. She became close to the family chauffeur Tom Branson due to their shared interest in socialism, but their growing relationship was interrupted by World War I. During the war, Lady Sybil volunteered as a nurse, treating wounded British Army soldiers on their repatriation to England. After the war, she and Branson renewed their relationship, and she ultimately decided to run away with Branson and married him in Dublin in 1920. Only her sisters attended the wedding, and she died while giving birth to a daughter, Sybbie Branson, who went on to be baptized a Catholic.
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