Jack and Eve

Vera Holme, known as Jack, left a career as a jobbing actress to become Emmeline Pankhurst's chauffeur and mechanic. Evelina Haverfield was a classic beauty, the daughter of a baron and fourteen years older than Jack. They met in 1908, fell in love, lived together, and became public faces of the suffragette movement, enduring prison and doing everything they could for the cause.

The First World War paused the suffragettes' campaign, and Jack and Eve enrolled in the Scottish Women's Hospital Service, soon finding themselves in Serbia. Eve set up and ran hospitals for allied soldiers in appalling conditions, while Jack became an ambulance driver, travelling along dirt tracks under bombardment to collect the wounded from the front lines.

Together, they carved radical new paths, demonstrating that women could do anything men could do, whether driving ambulances, running military hospitals, becoming prisoners of war, or bearing arms. They refused to compromise in their sexuality—they were lifelong partners even though Jack enjoyed relationships with other women. Determined to be themselves, 'forthright, flamboyant and proud', Wendy Moore uses their story as a lens through which to view the suffragette movement, the work of women in WWI, and the development of lesbian identity throughout the twentieth century.

Jack and Eve by Wendy Moore highlights these remarkable women and their indomitable spirit in a compelling narrative that enriches our understanding of both social movements and personal tenacity.