Sarah Brooke (1875-1959) was born Florence Maguerite Hannah, the only daughter of Major John Hannah. She trained and toured with the Thomas Thorne Company before making her London debut in 1896. She then joined Johnston Forbes-Robertson's Company and appeared in King John at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1899. The followng year, she was at the Lyceum Theatre with Lewis Waller, playing Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Katherine in Henry V. After this thorough training, she starred in a long series of very popular drawing-room comedies that made her name. These included E. F. Benson's Dodo (1905) and Jerome K. Jerome's The Master of Mrs Chilvers (1911).

Just after the oubreak of the First Word War, she retired from the stage and, in 1915, married Ronald James Hamilton (1872-1958), the eldest son of Lord George Francis Hamilton.