Joel Seaverns

[1][2][3] Seaverns graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1881.

[1][3] Their only son, Lieutenant Joel Harrison Seaverns of the 1/1st London Regiment, was killed in action during the First World War in May 1915.

[9] In October 1902 Seaverns was unanimously adopted as a prospective parliamentary candidate by Brixton Liberal Association in opposition to the sitting Conservative MP, Sir Robert Mowbray.

[5] By the time the election was called Mowbray had decided to retire, and his Conservative opponent was instead Davison Dalziel.

[6][7][15] Under the terms of his will, a charitable trust was established to provide for "the education, care, maintenance, support or benefit of such young people of any class of society whether infants or adults and being either poor orphans or the children of poor people as the trustees may from time to time select".