Looking Back – Horsham on the Home Front (Red Cross Gift Shop)

After VE Day the local paper (West Sussex County Times) quickly pulled together a series of articles looking at the work locally of various wartime organisations that were essential during the conflict.

Using the information provided we are publishing a number of posts looking at how Horsham fared on the Home Front. This time we feature the Red Cross Gift Shop.

During World War II the Red Cross operated several gift shops across the UK to raise funds that would help with various war efforts, such as helping prisoners of war.

Horsham was no exception and their shop opened on August 21, 1944, at 13 East Street.

The official opening was done by the Countess of Bessborough, who had joined the Red Cross and lived in Stansted House, near Chichester.

Before the opening ceremony there was a queue outside the shop and that first day brought in more than £125 from the sale of silver, china, glass, jewellery, old prints and other donated gifts.

The Countess herself bought a set of spoons for one of her god-children.

The shop remained open daily from then on, except Thursdays, with a regular rota of helpers.

The shop sent money to the Duke of Gloucester’s Red Cross and St John Appeal which had started up in 1939.

The first cheque for £1,000 was sent to the Fund on November 15, 1944, the second on February 20 1945 and the third on June 23, 1945. The shop closed in September of that year with the winding down of aid required.

Among the gifts given to the shop to sell were Christmas cards and calendars by a local artist, plus toys and dolls by other keen supporters.

Even the sign outside the shop was donated by a Mr O. Evans Palmer, a pupil from the Horsham School of Art.

Among the more unusual gifts given to the shop included an antique box containing an 18th Century service of four dozen knives with Dresden handles, once the property of S.A.R. le Duc d’Aumale, given by the Princess Walkonsky who had links to West Sussex..