The Queen's Appeal Now Closed

From The Observer, 15th November 1914.

QUEEN'S FUND FOR BELTS AND SOCKS.

The fund dealing with the Queen's appeal for belts and socks for the troops at the front is now closed.... Her Majesty has intimated her desire to re-open the appeal early in 1915 to send similar or other comforts to our sailors and soldiers.

Half a million belts and socks have already been landed in France and the response to Her Majesty's appeal has been so great that there is a large surplus.  The Queen, at the further request of Lord Kitchener, has decided to place a considerable portion of this surplus at the disposal of the Principal Medical Officer at the War Office.

Eighty thousand knitted belts for the Queen's present to the troops at the front have been procured through the Central Committee on Women’s Employment.  Work has been found by this means for large numbers of women in Kidderminster, Stroud, Belfast, London and other places.


[The Central Committee on Women's Employment was responsible for spending the money raised by the Queen's "Work for Women" Fund.  I assume that the 80,000 knitted belts procured by the Committee were machine-knitted - they are simply a tube of knitting, with no shaping.  They would be easy to make by machine, and very tedious to knit by hand.]  

From Weldon's Practical Needlework No. 346.