Paulina Irby | |
---|---|
Born |
Morningthorpe, England, United Kingdom |
19 December 1831
Died | 15 September 1911 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria-Hungary |
(aged 79)
Nationality | British |
Known for | Campaigner for Christian rights in the Ottoman Empire |
Adeline Paulina Irby (19 December 1831 – 15 September 1911) was a Balkan heroine known as "Miss Irby". A British travel writer and suffragist, she founded an early girls' school in Sarajevo and organised relief to thousands of refugees. The centenary of her death was commemorated throughout Yugoslavia.
(Adeline) Paulina Irby was born in 1831. Her father's home was at Boyland Hall in Morningthorpe. Her parents were Rear-Admiral Frederick Paul Irby and Frances Wright. Her mother, her father's second wife, came from Mapperley Hall near Nottingham. Her brother Colonel Howard Irby was a noted ornithologist.
Irby set out with her Scottish companion Georgina Muir Mackenzie initially to visit spa towns in Austria-Hungary and Germany in 1857. In 1858 they were arrested as spies in the Carpathian mountains on the grounds that they had "pan-Slavistic tendencies". They did not stand trial, and neither of them were aware of the underlying issues, but they were both intrigued by the subject. They travelled in Albania and Serbia investigating the conditions and both became supporters of Serbia and the southern Slavs as they saw their conditions under the perceived poor government by the Ottoman rulers. They were particularly concerned by the plight of Serbian Orthodox women and girls who found they had poor access to positions and schooling. In 1862 they published Notes on the South Slavonic Countries in Austria and Turkey in Europe based on Mackenzie's lecture in Bath and Across the Carpathians but they did this anonymously.