Alexandrina Maria Onslow

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Alexandrina Maria Onslow (January 27, 1868 – 1950) was a British Army official during World War I and later a member of the Yugoslav Partisans. She lived openly with her partner, Croatian painter Nasta Rojc, in Zagreb, becoming one of the first openly lesbian couples there.

She was born to Helen Jane Allardice and Royal Navy captain Harrington Campbell Onslow. In the war, Onslow served with the Volunteer Hospital of Australia and drove for the French Red Cross. In 1916 she joined the Scottish Women’s Hospital and worked as a driver on the Eastern Front. She returned to Britain in December 1916 to recruit more women drivers. In 1918 she went to the Balkans, and about a year later met Rojc during an Adriatic Sea excursion organized by the Scottish Women’s Hospitals.

In 1922 she became president of the Haverfield Foundation for Serbian Children in Bajina Bašta after Elsie Inglis and Evelina Haverfield died. In 1923 she moved in with Rojc in Zagreb, and they lived together for the rest of Onslow’s life.

From 1924 to 1925 she traveled with Rojc and Vera Holme to England and Scotland. In the United Kingdom, Rojc’s work was praised, but in Croatia she faced misogynist criticism. To support women artists, Onslow founded the Klub likovnih umjetnica (Club of Women Artists), the first group in the region aimed at promoting women artists, with Lina Virant Crnčić. She used her connections to gain sponsorship and commissions for Rojc, including a portrait of Alexander I of Yugoslavia. Onslow also appeared in some of Rojc’s paintings.

When World War II began, Onslow and Rojc joined the Yugoslav Partisans. After the Independent State of Croatia was proclaimed in 1941, their house was confiscated. In 1943 they were denounced and detained by the Ustaše, but were released after a few months when no evidence was found. They could not return home until 1945, when some property was returned. They continued to support the resistance.

In 1946 Onslow, then 76, was blind, deaf, and very ill, and they depended on help from friends abroad, including Vera Holme and British ambassador Ralph Skrine Stevenson in Belgrade. Onslow died in Zagreb in 1950 and was buried at Mirogoj cemetery next to Rojc, who later also was buried there after spending the rest of her life single and in poverty.