Treats for the Troops

[Desdichado]

Was there an organized effort by women during the war to provide care parcels for the men at the front? I was thinking along the lines of knitted socks, jumpers, home made jam and suchlike which would be appreciated by the troops. I'm particularly interested in women who banded together in small communities to provide these extras as part of the war effort.

If anyone can recommend a book on this subject, of if you have some original source material, I'd appreciate your help.

Regards - Des

[Sue Light]

Des

When I first read your post my immediate reaction was 'That's described in every book there is on the Home Front during the war', but I think perhaps I'm exaggerating! The very best sources I've found are in local newspapers. When I was going through them for reports local men who died, my eye was always caught by constant appeals for help from women with knitted goods, and making pyjamas and other hospitals necessities. They were organised into hundreds of groups nationwide - working parties, women's groups, knitting clubs and needlework guilds, and eventually most of these were taken under the umbrella of the British Red Cross Society. There is a list of many of these in an appendix of 'For Dauntless France' by Lawrence Binyon. One that still survives (in a different form) today was Queen Mary's Needlework Guild. I've just found the following extract in 'Edward Heron-Allen's Journal of the Great War', very much a Sussex book published by Phillimore's in 2002. I hardly need to describe the type of man Heron-Allen was - you'll get the gist of his personality

8 October 1914

Ever since the outbreak of war every woman and child in the kingdom, it seems to me, is knitting continuously. They never stop, in theatres between the acts, in restaurants between the courses, in omnibuses and trains. I believe the extreme cases of the disease, even in church, everyone knits. Even the waitresses in restaurants of the cheaper sort knit, and a story is told of a man who ordered barley soup, and was asked by the obsessed young woman who took his order ‘Pearl or plain, sir?’ A woman who can ‘turn a heel’ is a sort of Oxford ‘blue, and is in huge request at knitting parties. Old gentlemen like myself have to submit at all hours to have their products ‘tried on’, and it is said that there are curates whose hands are held permanently on a level with their shoulders owing to the many leagues of wool which have been wound upon them. Some are more prolific in output than others, and some only do it because it would seem almost as indecent for a woman to go out without her clothes as without her knitting. My niece Peggy Wells is one of these and I suggested that she should confine her industry to knitting socks for one-legged heroes of short stature – which annoyed her. At present my contribution has been to send a hundredweight of good chocolate from De Bry the French chocolatier in New Oxford Street to Adela’s Yorkshire Regiment.

Sue

[squirrel]

In the book Staistics WW1 reprint by N & M Press it mentions 3,000,000 pairs of socks being sent to the troops by charitable sources.

[Desdichado]

Thanks Sue. Perhaps I should have worded my post a little better. I was thinking of informally-organized groups of women - perhaps in a town where men had joined a "Pals" unit.

[Sue Light]

I think that's exactly what most of them were, except over time they became bigger and more organised. One of the groups local to me was the Bramber and Beeding knitting guild - the two villages were very small then, but even this group eventually was supplying goods via the BRCS. It was these tiny groups over the whole country that made the whole. The list in 'For Dauntless France' shows some quaint names for the groups which suggest early informality (but not for long!)

Mrs. Penny's Work Party, Wolverton

Miss Toogood's Work Depot, Winchester

Boston Mayoress' Needlework Guild

Mrs. Penrose's Work Party, Petworth

Kirkby Stephen Church of England Women's Help Society

Locally to me schools were sending goods to the Royal Sussex Regiment, particularly in the early part of the war, but later on more things were being collected into local centres - I think things changed a lot over the years; there were also many groups run by Regimental Associations. I don't think that there was much in the supply chain that was informal after the early days of the war.

Sue

[Terry_Reeves]

The BRCS archives holds a card index of the names of many of these women, with some basic details.

TR

[MartinWills]

The Australians did it on a more organised basis and there is a (very scarce) History of the Australian Comfort Fund. I know that the ex pat Community in Argentina also keep quite busy in this sphere which is documented in the equally scarce "Efforts of the British Community in Argentina in the Great War" or something with a very similar title.

[Bods]

My Great-Grandfather, Able Seaman George Skipworth had a muffler (long scarf I believe) knitted for him by a 12 year old girl.

He was a merchant seaman on the S.S Dido out of Hull.

The girl wasn't known to him but she was local to Hull and I assume it was part of a local initiative to provide comforts for seamen in wartime. Perhaps a school initiative?

She enclosed a short note in the parcel which was addressed to whoever received it.

In it she stated she was 12yrs old and called Sarah Howard and that she was "proud of the men doing their bit for the country".

George wrote a letter home dated 22/04/16 and in it he mentioned the muffler and his intention to write and thank the girl when he got back from sea.

Unfortunately, his ship was sunk 4 days later on the 26th and he never returned.

A very nice story, and I'm lucky to have copies of both his letter and a part of the note from Sarah.

David