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The British Embassy in Serbia has joined
forces with Serbia Post to produce stamps
commemorating the lives of six British
women who assisted the war effort in Serbia
during the First World War.
The Serbian stamps feature six British
women whose war efforts are still celebrated
in communities across Serbia. The women
honoured are Flora Sandes, the only British
woman to bear arms in the First World
War; British suffragette and humanitarian
worker Evelina Haverfield; women’s suffrage
campaigner and founder of the Scottish
Women Hospitals in Serbia, Dr Elsie Inglis;
Dr Elizabeth Ross, one of the first women to
obtain the medical degree at the University of
Glasgow; Dr Katherine MacPhail, remembered
for opening the first paediatric ward in
Belgrade in 1921; and Dr Elmslie Hutton,
who joined the Scottish Women Hospitals as
a volunteer in 1915 after she was turned away
by the War Office in London and served in
France, Greece and Serbia until 1920.In June 2014 British Embassy Belgrade
launched their ‘Great women of WW1’
campaign, dedicated to more than 600 British
women who served in Serbia as doctors, nurses,
drivers and in one case as a frontline soldier
in the Serbian Army. As well as remembering
their service to the war, the Embassy’s campaign
highlighted the values of these women such as
universal suffrage, solidarity, social and gender
equality to help build strong relationships with
leaders and communities in Serbia.
A spokeswoman at the British Embassy in
Serbia said: ‘The stamps were designed by
the academic painter Ms Marina Kalezic who
regularly creates Posts of Serbia stamps. To
get designs that captured the spirit of these
women and the roles they played, Ms Kalezic
and the Embassy worked in consultation with
a number of local institutions, the Serbian
Academy of Science and Arts, National
Library, Museum of Science and Technology
and the Serbian Medical Society.
‘Out of more than 600 members of British
Medical Missions that came to Serbia to offer
their help during the First World War, the
Embassy chose these six figures who are the
most recognisable in Serbia and who had really
prominent roles. They were active in different
municipalities across Serbia, and they all
demonstrated British values we in the Embassy
promote today – humanity, solidarity, gender
equality, universal suffrage.
‘Their memory lives on in Serbia where
many of the towns where they worked andlived still commemorate them every year. Every
year on 14 February there is a major ceremony
in the City of Kragujevac, commemorating Dr
Elizabeth Ross and several other members of
the Scottish Women’s Hospital who died there
trying to help with typhoid epidemic. Also,
every 2 August a small town in South West
Serbia organises a procession through the town
to commemorate Evelina Haverfield, who
worked there during the war, and founded an
orphanage there afterwards. She has even been
buried within the local church yard, which
is an honour usually shown only to church
dignitaries and rulers. The Medical School in
Vranje, in the South of Serbia, is named after
Dr Isabel Emslie Hutton, and in 2015, the
British Ambassador’s Residence in Belgrade was
officially named Elsie Inglis House.’
Denis Keefe, UK Ambassador to Serbia,
added: ‘As the son and grandson of Scots
doctors, I was proud and delighted to discover
the history of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals in
Serbia when I became Ambassador. The values
they stood for – humanity, solidarity, equality –
are needed more than ever in today’s world, and
are being shown every day by those in Serbia
and the region working to support refugees,
the vulnerable, and women and girls at risk of
violence. These women were a beacon of hope
in dark times, and a model for all of us today.’
For more information on the British Embassy
in Serbia’s ‘Great women of WW1’ campaign
visit http://www.facebook.com/UKinSerbia or follow
them on Twitter (@foreignoffice).Serbian stamps honour British WWI heroines
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