Evelina Haverfield

Haverfield on a 2015 Serbian stamp from the series "British Heroines of the First World War in Serbia". Evelina Haverfield (; 9 August 1867 – 21 March 1920) was a British suffragette and aid worker.

In the early 20th century, she was involved in Emmeline Pankhurst's militant women's suffrage organisation the Women's Social and Political Union. During World War I she worked as a nurse in Serbia. After the war, she returned to Serbia with her companion Vera Holme to set up an orphanage in Bajina Bašta, a town in the west of the country.

Early career Evelina's birth is recorded as 'the Honourable Evilena Scarlett' (with her first name spelled thus) born on 9 August 1867 at Inverlochy Castle, Kingussie in Scotland. She was the third child of the 5 daughters and a son of William Scarlett, 3rd Baron Abinger, and his wife, Helen Magruder, the daughter of a U.S. Navy commodore. Her childhood was divided between London and the Inverlochy estate. In 1880 she went to school in Düsseldorf, Germany. From 1890 to 1893, they lived at West Hall, an Elizabethan manor house at Folke near Sherborne. In 1893, the couple moved to Marsh Court at a Dorset hamlet, Caundle Marsh. Evelina's husband was 20 years her senior. and Brook Tunstall Haverfield (1889–1954), but Henry Haverfield died eight years later. another Royal Artillery major, later a brigadier-general, later a Metropolitan Police magistrate, and an old army friend of her late husband. The ceremony took place in Caundle Marsh. The bride soon reverted to the name Haverfield and kept her home at Marsh Court in Sherborne. On her wedding day, she wrote in her diary: 'I married Major Balguy with no intention of changing my name or mode of life in any way. He is an old friend of my darling Jack.'

During the Second Boer War, she travelled to South Africa for two years to act as assistant to her husband who was stationed there. She enjoyed being involved in the military zone and even took part in rifle practice.

Haverfield's friendship with Vera "Jack" Holme, who lived with her in Devon from 1911, may have been more like a marriage, as a year after moving in, Holme made Haverfield her sole heir (including leaving her a bed with 'E.H.&V.H.' carved on it). In 1921, Haverfield's own will was refuted by her husband; it was said their marriage was "an unsatisfactory union".

In 1908, she attended a rally at the Royal Albert Hall and started supporting the militant suffragettes, joining the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Haverfield's part in this particular protest had been to attempt to disrupt a police cordon by leading police horses out of their rank. although during 1919 Holme was living in Kirkcudbright where she had an affair with the artist Dorothy Johnstone.

With Alice Laura Embleton (a cancer scientist), Vera Holme, and Celia Wray, Haverfield set up the private 'Foosack League' between themselves. Its membership was restricted to women and suffragists; the internal evidence suggests the Foosack League was a lesbian secret society. Certainly, the four were close friends – as evidenced by the many letters written between them, particularly during World War I.

World War I When World War I broke out in 1914, Haverfield became concerned with how women could help in the event of an invasion of the UK and founded the Women's Emergency Corps. In 1915 she volunteered to go abroad with the Scottish Women's Hospitals, joining Elsie Inglis in Serbia, In early 1916, they were forced to leave Serbia following the German invasion. She died of pneumonia on 21 March 1920, aged 52, and is buried in the cemetery at Church of Saint Elijah in Bajina Bašta. despite the challenge from Haverfield's husband.