Blackheath School of Art and art therapy for wounded soldiers in World War I

In the course of my reading about the history of the BSA I came across an article which described a scene that has remained with me from the moment I read it. It concerned a returning soldier standing, silently, neck deep in water in one of the Blackheath ponds. I can only scarcely imagine the awful predicament that he must have been in. What followed was a description that people just walked past him as if it was something strange and not doing anything about it. It took another soldier, passing by, to understand the distress the poor young man must have been suffering. He removed his coat and waded into the water to rescue him, made sure he was okay and then walked away.[1]

Bermondsey Military Hospital, Ladywell.
Source: more available here

Thankfully there were some positive stories relating to soldiers and their state of mind when returning from the Front. Just prior to the temporary move of the Blackheath School of Art to its temporary location at 5 Lee Terrace (opposite St Margaret’s, Lee) in September 1918 the annual students’ exhibition included works by soldiers returning from the Front. These soldiers had been injured and were recovering in Bermondsey Military Hospital in nearby Ladywell.

John Howard Hale, Principal of Blackheath School of Art, 1928.
Blackheath Local Guide, 21 July 1928, p. 14.

John Howard Hale, principal of BSA, worked closely with the medical officer in charge of the hospital, Lieutenant Colonel H Marrett Tims, using arts and crafts as a way to help rehabilitate soldiers. These classes began in the February of 1918 and despite initial worries about funding they ran and were very successful. Funding was secured from the British Red Cross through the hard work of the Mayor and Mayoress of Lewisham. It was Tims’ belief that the recovery of the soldiers would be hastened by undertaking creative craft work.

Bermondsey Military Hospital Christmas Card 1918 from H Marrett Tims and staff.

At the suggestion of Tims and John White, Hale was tasked with deciding on the classes and also recruiting teachers of the classes from the existing BSA staff and advanced students. The following subjects were decided upon as the most beneficial for the soldiers: bookbinding, woodcarving, metalwork, drawing, lettering and design  and needlework (including rug making). Recovering soldiers had been encouraged to undertake art earlier in 1916, at Johnson Hospital in Lincoln although I believe that the organised classes at Bermondsey Military Hospital were some of the first to be tailor made in order help with rehabilitation.[2]

According to the author of the article in the Blackheath Local Guide, it seemed like the expectations held for the classes succeeding (being popular) were not incredibly high. Through the expertise of the teachers and students recruited by Hale the scheme was incredibly popular with the patients. The soldiers were incredibly inspired by their immersion into the world of arts and crafts. The hard work of the instructors allowed an access to the creative process that many of the soldiers were either not familiar with or had never had the opportunity to utilise in the past.

Many of the soldiers stayed in touch with their instructors after they were discharged from the hospital. It also led to others becoming teachers of art when returning to their home countries. The outstanding success of the scheme was summed up by the following:

The scheme has succeeded almost beyond the sanguine expectations of its originator. The instructors, under his [Hale’s] inspiration and direction, threw themselves whole-heartedly into their work and found the soldiers apt and eager pupils. Whilst they received from Lieut-Col. Tims every encouragement. That the scheme, whilst recreative, was at the same time truly educative is shown by the fact that one man has already received an appointment as [a] teacher of wood-carving in South Africa.[3]

The soldiers were inspired by learning new skills and the teaching of the instructors that many of them kept in touch with their teachers after being discharged from the hospital. Others also expressed a wish for art lessons to continue in earnest in their home villages.[4] The instructors for these classes were taken from the teaching staff at the school and advanced students. Some of the students who helped were: Miss Butler, Miss Booth, Miss Cooke, Miss Harding and Miss White and the administrative work was taken up by the school’s registrar Mrs SW Dowling who acted as Honorary Secretary.[5] I haven’t yet been able to find out a lot about these students other than there was a Miss E White whose church book marks were praised in the 1916 students’ exhibition, as were the crocheted pieces by Miss Harding mentioned,[6] and a Mrs EB Cooke’s ceramic works were described as ‘striking’.[7]

Harold Nelson, Design for a Coat of Arms - given Nelson's proficiency with designing arms I can imagine that he helped soldiers with reproducing their crests.
Source: Collection of the author.

Teaching staff during these years included John Kerr (Design and Weaving), Emily Jane Morley (Needlework and Embroidery), Harold Nelson (Black and White Illustration), Mr R Toms (Metalwork), and Mr Edgar Green (Bookbinding). I would presume that some of the works included in the exhibition later held at the hospital included pieces by the teachers of the soldiers’ classes.

Advertisement for courses at BSA featuring details of the exhibition of the works of art created by wounded soldiers.
Blackheath Local Guide, 17 November 1918, p. 1.

Ten days after the Armistice an exhibition of the works made by the soldiers was opened by Lady Haig at the Bermondsey Military Hospital. Included among the soldiers’ works were pieces by their teachers which most likely included the teachers mentioned above from BSA staff and also the advanced students. The opening, on 21 November, received national coverage although the detail was very brief. The exhibition featuring in the Daily Record and Mail, the next day, was described as follows:

Lady Haig, in opening an exhibition of art and craft work by soldier patients at the Bermondsey Military Hospital yesterday, said that her husband’s one hope and one thought, now that the war was over, was for those who had who had been through fighting… She knew that his one aim and ambition in life was to see that those who had fought and suffered should come through all right.[8] 

Lady Haig was incredibly impressed by the quality of the works that were produced over such a short period of time.[9]

The exhibition was extremely popular with the works selling out very quickly. The soldiers were described as being very adept at needlework, I can imagine Emily Morley and Harold Nelson helping them with their depictions of company and squadron crests, these being understandably popular subjects. The works were ‘judged’ by Lady Robertson (a member of the BSA committee) the principal Hale, which makes me think that they gave awards to the soldiers (again sadly I have not found any record of these). Lady Robertson also expressed delight at the high quality of work on display.[10]

I am hopeful, that this might be the beginning of discovering more about an incredible period in the history of the Blackheath School of Art and its role in the rehabilitation of soldiers returning from the battlefields. Perhaps the last words should, for now, belong to the reviewer:

Every visitor must have been struck by the originality both of design and treatment displayed in the work; whether embroidery and needlework or jewellery, and metalwork or pottery and wood-carving. In execution, too, many of the articles on view were marked with a delicacy which one associates with the gentler sex. How highly those present at the Exhibition thought of the work was shown by the quick sale of all the exhibits.[11]

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[1] I am usually very good at writing down references, but yet, for some reason I didn’t note the date or page number of the Blackheath Guide I was reading other than it was from 1915.

[2] The classes at Johnson Hospital are believed to have led to the founding of the Spalding Arts and Crafts Society - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02b0vzt

[3] ‘Art and the Wounded Soldier’ in Blackheath Local Guide, 14 December 1918, p. 20.

[4] loc. cit., p. 21. Unfortunately there is no reference to specific names of soldiers or teachers.

[5] Blackheath Local Guide, 19 October, 1918, p. 14. The names appear in a brief review of the Students’ Exhibition.

[6] ‘Blackheath School of Arts and Crafts: Exhibition of Students’ Works’ in Blackheath Local Guide, 7 October 1916, p. 15 and ‘Blackheath School of Art: Exhibition of Students’ Works: Blackheath Local Guide, 26 September, 1914, p. 8. In 1914 Miss E White exhibited a processional banner featuring St Peter holding keys on a white ground destined for St Peter’s Church, Eltham. It was described as one of the more prominent works on display.

[7] Blackheath Local Guide, 27 September 1919, p. 24. ‘Nor has the Potter’s wheel been idle. Specimens of pottery thrown, baked, decorated, glazed and fired including some striking work by Mrs EB Cooke.’

[8] ‘Sir D. Haig’s One Ambition’, in Daily Record and Mail, Friday 22 November, 1918, p. 5.

[9] Blackheath Local Guide, 14 Dec 1918, p. 21.

[10] ibid.

[11] loc. cit. pp. 21 – 22.