Modern craft in the aftermath of war: The case of the Disabled Soldiers’ Embroidery Industry, 1918–1971

Although almost one million British servicemen were killed in the First World War almost double, an estimated 2.2 million, returned home injured. Figures collated by the Official History of the Medical Services suggest that almost 8% of British army personnel wounded during the war were discharged with an unprecedented range of disabilities. Unlike other nations in Europe that sought to support their ex-servicemen through a network of state and voluntarist initiatives, the British government and legislature largely abdicated responsibility for all but the most basic material and economic welfare of its veterans. Instead, upon returning to civilian life British disabled ex-servicemen struggled, and often failed, to reintegrate and recover the social, cultural and economic positions they had left behind such was the severity of their physical and physiological injuries. Aside from the meagre assistance offered from state bodies many disabled veterans relied on charitable organisations to provide training and employment opportunities. Positioned on the fringes of modern British industry, which had been so exhausted and depleted by the vast expense of warfare, these organisations used craft as both a means of convalescence and rehabilitation. This chapter reconsiders the most prominent and the most successful of all these charitable enterprises, the Disabled Soldiers’ Embroidery Industry (1918-1971). This workshop was one of the most celebrated and successful luxury textile enterprises in early-mid twentieth century Britain and made a particularly significant contribution to the renaissance of embroidery and other needlecrafts that is today largely unrecorded and almost completely overlooked. This chapter not only reconsiders the history and activities of workshop, drawing on the workshop’s privately-held archives and major museum collections, but further, it aims to reposition the workshop as central to debates about how modern conceptualisations of craft have been shaped and transformed by the context of modern warfare.