How did “The Disabled Soldiers Embroidery Industry” Challenge the Gender Norms of Early 20th Century Britain?
By the end of World War I (WWI) over a quarter of a million soldiers returned from the war, severely disabled. They were shell shocked, blinded and crippled and trying to recover from the atrocities of war. Many of these men ended up housebound and the problem arose of how these disabled soldiers were meant to work and find suitable employment? The answer came in the form of threads and cross stitching.
In 1911, 3 years before the start of WWI, Annie Collin founded a charity called “The Friends of the Poor” with the aim to ‘bridge the gap between the rich and the deserving poor.’ The charity gained the support of Princess Mary Louise, daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. Ernest Thesiger was an actor, artist and friend of the Princess, who’s hands were severely wounded in France during WWI. He saw first-hand the impact that embroidery could have on injured soldiers when he visited a friend in hospital. He suggested to the Government that they should set up an embroidery scheme for injured soldiers, but it was rejected. In 1918, Thesiger spearheaded the creation of “The Disabled Soldiers Embroidery Industry” when he suggested the idea to “The Friends of the Poor." The injured soldiers received a small statuary pension and the charity aimed to offer support and help the soldiers earn more money.
Ernest Thesiger (Image Credit: University of Bristol)
Most of the men involved in the scheme were bed or housebound. This meant that the charity taught the soldiers by home visits or by postal instruction. The charity worked with a number of companies such as Pearsall’s which provided the threads and Weldon’s who provided the patterns. Weldon’s also offered another employment scheme for ex-soldiers to make up their patterns. The embroiderers were held to a very high standard, they made intricate and delicate pieces that gained a lot of interest from the public and members of the Royal Family. Thesiger originally suggested that the men should copy and mend old designs and at the beginning the men traced historical designs to copy. However, as the men’s skills increased and developed, many of them began to create their own designs which allowed a space for artistic expression. The embroideries were made with a range of threads from brightly coloured silks to metallic cottons. The pieces were finished with a “Soldiers Embroidery Industry: Made by the Totally Disabled” label.
The Disabled Soldiers Embroidery Industry Label
The charity was based at offices in Ebury Street, Belgravia in London. Part of these headquarters were turned into showrooms and when Queen Mary visited them she was so impressed by the work that she commissioned an altar frontal for Buckingham Palace to commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The work of the soldiers was first exhibited in 1919 at Chelsea House in London and from then on exhibitions were held across London and elsewhere in the UK.
Men partaking in embroidery challenged the gender norms of the times. Headlines of newspaper articles about the charity often made fun of the men with headlines such as “Soldiers Sister Susie Sewed for Seek to Sew Themselves” which is based on the wartime song “Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts for Soldiers.” Thesiger suggested that the reason why the government rejected his initial proposal was because they believed the scheme to be too “effeminate [an] occupation for ex-soldiers.” Embroidery was perceived to be a woman’s pastime and it was worrying to society that that injured and unemployed veterans had to resort to a “feminine” pastime to survive; this created fear about the effect that the war had on ‘masculinity’. Ana Carden-Coyne, a First World War historian, suggested that because embroidery allowed men to psychologically heal, it was fleetingly acceptable for men to embroider. She also suggested that it was considered acceptable because Freudian psychoanalysis and Victorian ideas that men only became masculine after an initial feminine stage, so it was acceptable for men because it was “helping the weary and embattled to regain manhood through a transitional state of feminized becoming, beginning with gentle womanly arts.” However, this attitude began to change when their impressive church embroideries gained attention. This meant that people began to take the enterprise more seriously. In 1925, Queen Mary exclaimed that “Why, the men are as good as the women!”
The charity’s work
continued during WWII. During this time the soldiers helped to create “Needlecraft
for H.M. Forces by Penelope” kits (needlework kits for soldiers in hospitals) as
part of a government scheme. The Disabled Soldiers Embroidery Industry also
continued to provide rehabilitation and a source of income to the injured
soldiers. In 1955, the charity closed down with Annie Collin passing away in
1957 and Ernest Thesiger dying in 1961. However, the legacy of the Disabled
Soldiers Embroidery Industry not only helped to rehabilitate and provide
employment for disabled soldiers, but it also challenged the gender norms of
the day. It helped to push sewing away
from the stereotype of being a woman’s
pastime and started to challenge people’s ideas of masculinity.
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