*WW1, Trench Art Brass Match Case, Engraved with an Iron Cross, Blanche Woolnouch, Wimereux*
Engraved: Blanche Woolnouch, Wimereux, German Style Iron Cross with a W
Wimereux is in France and in the First World War, formed an important hospital centre. Until June 1918, the medical units used Wimereux communal cemetery for burials. In the First World War, Boulogne and Wimereux formed an important hospital centre and until June 1918, the medical units used Wimereux communal cemetery for burials. Lady Hadfield set up and ran a Red Cross hospital here at her own expense for the treatment of wounded and sick servicemen. The Women’s Hospital Corps, founded by Flora Murray and Louisa Garratt Anderson, opened their second hospital in Wimereux, on request of the RAMC. It was the first women’s hospital to be recognised by the British Army. Colonel John McCrae, the Canadian gunner and doctor who wrote the popular war poem “In Flanders Fields”, served and died in the hospital and is buried here.
We guess that Blanche was a nurse working in Wimereux during WW1.
During World War One virtually all troops smoked and the most common method of lighting cigarettes and pipes was a box of matches. These boxes could easily get crushed in a pocket so metal covers were often used to protect them. Home-made ‘trench art’ examples in brass like this one. The basic brass covers were either made by the troops themselves from scrap brass (old artillery shells being used) or by enterprising French civilians who sold them to soldiers to decorate as they wished.
*Condition*
Good used condition. Please see photographs as part of the condition report.
RQMCEXGO_6262176940
