The Museum and Art Gallery
‘Then to Art Gallery to tea, doing it great’
Diary of William Norman, the Army Service Corps, March 1918
The Inquiry Bureau organised trips out for those wounded able to leave the hospital. In the summer they went to the Zoological Gardens, in the winter to the Museum and Art Gallery. At both places, entertainment was provided. At the Museum and Art Gallery the men could look around the galleries, and the staff gave lantern-slide lectures on various topics of interest.
The downstairs room of the Museum was cleared and turned into a tea and concert room. Thousands of patients enjoyed tea and a smoke with entertainment, the tea served and cleared away by an army of volunteer women. A number of romances flourished between patients and volunteer helpers at the hospitals, the Zoo and the Museum, and the Inquiry Bureau did jokingly consider changing its name to the Matrimonial and Inquiry Bureau.
The Inquiry Bureau organised trips out for those wounded able to leave the hospital. In the summer they went to the Zoological Gardens, in the winter to the Museum and Art Gallery. At both places, entertainment was provided. At the Museum and Art Gallery the men could look around the galleries, and the staff gave lantern-slide lectures on various topics of interest.
The downstairs room of the Museum was cleared and turned into a tea and concert room. Thousands of patients enjoyed tea and a smoke with entertainment, the tea served and cleared away by an army of volunteer women. A number of romances flourished between patients and volunteer helpers at the hospitals, the Zoo and the Museum, and the Inquiry Bureau did jokingly consider changing its name to the Matrimonial and Inquiry Bureau.