Beadwork & Embroidery - Embroidery
One of the main sources of embroideries are girlfriends and wives ‘back home’ producing something to decorate their home and remind them of their boy in France.
The second is the wounded soldiers in hospitals back in England who would be taught embroidery as a kind of ‘occupational therapy’, getting minds and fingers active again and relieving boredom while wounds healed. George Coppard mentions this in his book, ‘With a Machine Gun to Cambrai’. While recuperating in hospital in Birkenhead... “One kind old lady brought a supply of coloured silks and canvas, and instructed us in the art of embroidery. A sampler which I produced under her guidance so pleased her that she had it framed for me.”
Not all were done to keep, the example here still retains its label and price tag – made by Rifleman Sharman of the 10th Scottish Rifles while at Endell Street Military Hospital in Covent Garden, a voluntary aid detachment hospital that was set up and run exclusively by militant suffragettes from 1915 to the end of 1919.