Siân Busby
Siân Elizabeth Busby (19 November 1960 – 4 September 2012) was a British writer.
Also recorded as Siân Elizabeth Busby · Sian Busby · Sian Elizabeth Busby
Siân Busby
- Born
- 1960 · London.
- Died
- 2012
- Nationality
- United Kingdom
- Occupation
- writer · film director
- Education
- University of Sussex
- Languages
- English
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Siân Busby. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Evidence Panel
identity unresolved · checked 25 September 2026
- Identity
- unresolved
- Independent source families
- 0
- Admitted assertions
- 0
- Open conflicts
- 0
Authority files
wikidata · Q2291035 · wikipedia · Siân Busby
In this article
Early life and career
The daughter of the Canadian actor Tom Busby and Wendy Russell, Siân Busby was educated at Creighton School in Muswell Hill, north London, and read English at Sussex University. After embarking in a career in arts television, she later switched to writing. Her first two books were non-fiction. A Wonderful Little Girl (2003) concerned a Welsh child whose apparent ability to survive without nourishment led doctors to term the condition anorexia, while The Cruel Mother (2004) was a semi-autobiographical account of child murder by one of Busby's ancestors. McNaughten (2009) concerned a mentally unstable 19th-century woodcutter who was accused of attempting to assassinate Sir Robert Peel. Daniel M'Naghten, a genuine historical figure, had instead shot and fatally injured Edward Drummond, Peel's private secretary. Significant in case law, the M'Naghten rules resulted from his acquittal at the subsequent trial.on the grounds of insanity. Another book, Who Was Boudicca, Warrior Queen (2006), was written for children. Busby was diagnosed as suffering from lung cancer in 2007. She had finished her last book, a novel A Commonplace Killing, shortly before she died from the disease in 2012. The book, describing the investigation into the murder of a woman in post-war London, was published in May 2013 and featured as BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime in June of the same year.
Personal life
From 1998, Busby was married to Robert Peston, the BBC's former business editor; the couple had a son, Max, born the year before they married. Peston and Busby had known each other since their teens, and only rekindled their relationship after her friend, Peston's sister Juliet, was hospitalised following a road accident. In the meantime, Busby had married and been divorced from the Dutch film maker Kees Rijninks. Busby died in September 2012 from lung cancer, after a long illness.
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Obituary: Siân Busby, telegraph.co.uk, 6 September 2012
- 2.Cassandra Jardine, "Sian Busby: My husband Robert Peston, the workaholic 'oracle'", telegraph.co.uk, 26 May 2009.
- 3.Sian Busby, "1843 and All That: murder and a ‘crooked’ parliament", The Spectator, 30 May 2009.
- 4.PA, "Novelist Sian Busby dies aged 51", The Guardian, 5 September 2012.
- 5.John Plunkett, "Robert Peston writes about his wife's battle with cancer", The Guardian, 30 April 2013.
- 6.Elizabeth Grice, "Robert Peston: 'I'm not going to become smooth and phoney'", telegraph.co.uk, 24 January 2008.
- 7.Robert Peston – Leave of absence. BBC. 5 September 2012.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 5
- A Wonderful Little Girl: The True Story of Sarah Jacob, the Welsh Fasting Girl (2003)
- The Cruel Mother (2004)
- Boudicca (Who Was...?) (2006)
- McNaughten (2009)
- A Commonplace Killing (2014)
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
Knowledge graph
People, houses and institutions
Teachers, collaborators, publishers and institutions recorded against this person, each on a stated basis.
Born at
1- LondonPlace
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 29 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Film memorabilia
36,804 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- ShyamaprasadPerson
- Siamak AtlasiPerson
- Siamak ShayeghiPerson
- Siamak YasemiPerson
- Siân HéderPerson
- Siatta Scott JohnsonPerson
- Sibel CanPerson
- Sibi MalayilPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Siân Busby?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.