The WWI soldiers who sewed for sanity: New exhibition tells how troops injured on the Western Front took up embroidery while recovering in hospital

To the War Office, the thought of soldiers doing embroidery led to fears that it would make them weak.

Officials believed that letting men take up needlework would ‘effeminise’ them. 

But, as a new exhibition reveals, embroidery proved to be an effective tonic for injured troops who had experienced the horrors of the trenches in the First World War.

It was proved to be such a successful form of therapy that, in the Second World War, commercial embroidery packs were made available for injured soldiers. 

The display at the Fusilier Museum in Warwick shows some of the colourful works produced by recovering Tommies.

They include a depiction of daffodils produced by Private Austen Albert Ward, who lost part of one of his legs in 1918 and took up embroidery while in hospital.  

Private Ward had spent four years fighting in the war and was just months away from making it through uninjured when he was hit by a bomb.

The 24-year-old, from Ashted, Birmingham, was shipped back to England and, like many other injured soldiers, took up embroidery. 

A picture shows him convalescing in his hospital bed while surrounded by nurses as one of his works lies next to him and a man – possibly another recovering soldier – holds up another embroidery behind him.   

Another intricate piece of needlework, which depicts a bouquet of flowers, was brought back from France by soldier Albert Randall.

He gave it to his sweetheart Lily as a token of his affection, before tragically being killed in a trench raid outside Arras in northern France in November 1917.

Chris Kirby, manager of the Fusiliers Museum, said: ‘In the First World War there was an official War Office line. 

‘They wanted to deter the practice because it was feared that it would effeminise the men and make them weak. 

‘All the time they were fighting to create a disciplined, macho camerarderie-focused force. They were quite anti the idea of soldiers going off and making embroidery.’

The works that soldiers produced were often complex and included the colours and mascots of their regiments. 

At the new exhibition, the antelope mascot of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment is a common theme on many of the works. 

Other embroideries have a photograph of a soldier at its centre. They acted as a powerful memorial of the military career of a son or father.  

After the war, many soldiers who could no longer do the jobs they used to do because of their injures were trained up to do needlework to make a living.  

Some of the soldiers who could not do the jobs that they did before the war were in hardship, they came up with the scheme where they could be trained up to do needlework to make money. After the war these soldiers were doing embroidery to make a living. 

‘By A Thread – Embroidery & Needlework in Wartime’ spans from the 1899 Second Boer War to the Suez Crisis in 1956. 

It is being held at Pageant House, on Jury Street in Warwick until May 25. 

It is free to enter as part of the general museum admission. Tickets to the museum  are £5 for adults and £4 for veterans, over 65s and students.