Evelina Haverfield

Evelina Haverfield

Evelina Haverfield (9 August 1867 – 21 March 1920)[1] was a British suffragette and aid worker. In the early part of the 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.

Biography

Early life

Haverfield was born Evelina Scarlett in 1867 at Inverlochy Castle, Kingussie in Scotland.[2] She was the third daughter of William Scarlett, 3rd Baron Abinger and his wife Helen, who was the daughter of a United States Navy Commodore.[2][3] Her childhood was divided between London and the Inverlochy estate.[4] In 1880 she went to school in Düsseldorf, Germany.[2] On 10 February 1887, at the age of 19, she married a Royal Artillery officer, Major Henry Wykeham Brooke Tunstall Haverfield, in Kensington, London, and the couple went to live in Dorset. Her husband was 20 years her senior[2][4] The marriage was a happy one and produced two sons, John Campbell Haverfield (born 1887) and Brook Tunstall Haverfield (born 1889) but Henry Haverfield died eight years later.[2][4]

Haverfield enjoyed a lifestyle not yet commonplace for women, for example, she rode a bicycle she called Pegasus.[4] On 19 July 1899, she married John Henry Balguy, another Royal Artillery major, (later a brigadier-general,) and a friend of her late husband.[2][5] The ceremony took place in a Dorset hamlet called Caundle Marsh.[4] The bride soon reverted to the name Haverfield and kept her home in Sherborne.[2][4] During the Second Boer War, she travelled to South Africa for two years to act as assistant to her husband who was stationed there.[4] She enjoyed being involved in the military zone and even took part in rifle practice.[4] While there she formed a retirement camp for horses.[2]

Women's suffrage

Haverfield began to take an interest in politics and aligned herself with the moderate women's suffrage groups.[4] She joined the Sherborne branch of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.[2] 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).[2] She took part in numerous protests and was arrested several times for obstructing and assaulting the police.[4]

In 1909 Haverfield took part in the Bill of Rights March.[4] Members of the WSPU, led by Emmeline Pankhurst, attempted to enter the House of Commons.[4] They were blocked by the police and over 100 women were arrested, including Haverfield.[4] Following a WSPU demonstration in 1910 she was arrested for assaulting a police officer after hitting him in the mouth.[2][3] According to the charges brought against her, she had also said "It was not hard enough. Next time I will bring a revolver."[3] In 1911 she was among 200 women arrested in London for breaking windows and damaging government buildings during a protest against the Manhood Suffrage bill.[6] Haverfield's part in this particular protest had been to attempt to disrupt a police cordon by leading police horses out of their rank.[3] In the same year Haverfield began a relationship with her fellow suffragist the actress Vera "Jack" Holme which lasted until Haverfield's death.[7]

War

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.[2][4] In 1915 she volunteered to go abroad with the Scottish Women's Hospitals, joining Elsie Inglis in Serbia.[2][4] In early 1916, they were forced to leave Serbia following the German invasion.[2] Haverfield returned to England and gave press interviews about the situation in Serbia.[4] In August, she travelled at Inglis' request to Dobrudja in Romania.[4] With Flora Sandes she founded the Hon. Evelina Haverfield's and Sert-Major Flora Sandes' Fund for Promoting Comforts for Serbian Soldiers and Prisoners.[3] Following the end of the war, she turned her attention to the orphaned Serbian children.[4] She died in 1920 of pneumonia in Serbia having gone there the previous September to work in an orphanage.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Bernard Burke; Charles Harry Clinton Pirie-Gordon (1937). Genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry: founded by the late Sir Bernard Burke. Band 1 (15. Auflage ed.). Shaw. p. 90.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 Crawford, Elizabeth (September 2004). "Haverfield , Evelina (1867–1920)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Crawford, Elizabeth (2001). The women's suffrage movement: a reference guide, 1866–1928. Routledge. p. 279. ISBN 0-415-23926-5.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 Gaddes, Boyce (22 August 2009). "The Life of Evelina Haverfield". FirstWorldWar.com. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
  5. ↑ "Lot 422, 13 September 2012". Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria (13 – 14 September 2012). Dix Noonan Webb. Retrieved 30 June 2010.
  6. ↑ "Women Smash London Windows", The New York Times, 22 November 1911, retrieved 23 January 2010
  7. ↑ "Papers of Vera (Jack) Holme". The National Archives. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
  8. ↑ "A Great Loss", The Globe, 16 March 1920, retrieved 23 January 2010
Political offices
Preceded by
Sybil Thomas		 Honorary Treasurer of the East London Federation of Suffragettes
1914 		Succeeded by
Edgar Lansbury