The following four jewels were the gift of Dame Joan Evans (22 June 1893 - 14 July 1977) to her friend Mrs Enid Locket, neé Rosser. They met at Oxford and Mrs Locket later recalled in her memoirs that 'at St Hugh's there was also Joan Evans, some seven years older than I and no longer an undergraduate, but Librarian.' They became good friends and later in her memoir Mrs Locket mentions her stays at Thousand Acres, Dame Joan's home in Wootton under Edge and says 'it was a lovely place to linger in and one of the astonishing occupations on a wet afternoon was to go with Joan to the attics and enjoy to the full pulling out cardboard boxes and handling jewels some of which once belonged to Marie Antoinette and Catherine of Russia. It was all so improbable and simple but the jewels were as safe in those attics as anywhere else, probably safer.'

Having completed her studies in Archaeology at St Hugh's college Oxford, Dame Joan Evans went on to become a well known collector and connoisseur of antique jewellery, as well as a scholar of medieval art and member of the Victoria & Albert Museums advisory council. She published her first book, 'English Jewellery from the 5th Century Ad to 1900' in 1921 and went on to publish many others on various subjects related to the history of ornament in Western Europe. Dame Joan donated more than 800 jewels to the Victoria & Albert museum in 1975 and was appointed Dame of the British Empire in 1976.