Collections Online

White cotton tablecloth with a crocheted border. Embroidered in white cotton thread with the signatures of patients and staff at the Welsh Metropolitan War Hospital in 1917. From 1915-1919, the Cardiff City Mental Hospital in Whitchurch, Cardiff, was taken over by the military and became known as the Welsh Metropolitan War Hospital. Civilian psychiatric patients were moved to other institutions, while injured soldiers requiring orthopaedic care occupied their beds. In 1917, 450 beds were allocated for soldiers with mental health conditions.

The signatures embroidered on the tablecloth include Lieutenant-Colonel Edwin Goodall (the former First Medical Superintendant of the hospital who enlisted with the Royal Army Medical Corps during the war) and Matron Florence Raynes who was in charge of all the nursing staff.