Over recent weeks I’ve been focusing on cataloguing, a process I absolutely love as it provides chance to revisit objects and indulge in a little extra research.
This unassuming little blue linen envelope pouch, embroidered with its solitary sprig of peach and orange blooms, is by far an away one of my favourite objects I’ve ever had the pleasure of examining, documenting and archiving.
It was made by the Soldiers Embroidery Industry, a charitable organisation set up after the First World War to aid the rehabilitation of severely injured, bedridden and shell-shocked soldiers. With over a quarter of a million combatants returning from the war with debilitating and permanently life changing injuries and only limited support available from the state, multiple charitable organisations set up quickly to fill the gap. The Disabled Soldiers Embroidery Industry was one of the most high profile, spearheaded by Ernest Thesiger it was supported by royalty, aristocracy and the middle classes enabling them to visually display their ‘Christian values’.
Alongside saleable items, soldiers created large scale pieces for royalty (including an altar piece for the private chapel at Buckingham Palace), churches and exhibitions. In 1933 the Daily Mirror reported that Princess Elizabeth received a gift of ‘a small blue bag embroidered in petit point, with her initial “E” and a crown on the front of it’, from a disabled soldier at a bazar, I wonder if it looked anything like this one?
Every Stitch A Story 