Magazine of the Shamrock Club

This material is held atGwasanaeth Archifau Conwy / Conwy Archive Service

  • Reference
    • GB 2008 CX521
  • Dates of Creation
    • 1940 Nov
  • Language of Material
    • English
  • Physical Description
    • 1 vol.

Scope and Content

A club to raise money for the Little Folks Convalescent Home of Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex but evacuated to Woking, Surrey. This is a hand-made magazine that was created, contributed to and circulated to club members in support of the children's home. It contains letters, stories, poems, drawings and pictures, competitions, jokes and instructions for sending on the magazine to the next member on the list. It refers to specific fund-raising efforts for a small girl who had been convalescing at the Home and includes letters of thanks from her mother, which also refer to the stresses of living through war in London. The Home was founded in 1911 to offer convalescence to children from Queen Elizabeth Hospital in London. During the War it was evacuated from its original site in Bexhill and re-located to Woking, and that is the period from which this magazine dates. Members of the Shamrock Club appear to have mostly been teenage girls. The donor speculated that it may have been an evacuee who brought the magazine to North Wales with her, as there appears to be no obvious explanation for its arrival in the Colwyn Bay and Abergele area.

Access Information

This collection is open for research. Access to some documents may be restricted due to Data Protection legislation, Conwy Archives will advise where this is the case. For details and opening hours see http://www.conwy.gov.uk/en/Resident/Libraries-Museums-and-Archives/Archives/Archives.aspx.

Custodial History

The donor recalls that this handmade magazine arrived by post addressed to her in 1941, without explanation. Although it is clear from the content of the magazine that it was intended to be posted to members in turn, each of whem would read it and send it on to the next name on the list, the donor thought that her name was the last in the list and she did not know who to send it to next.

Related Material

Download of the British Journal of Nursing, June 30 1917, with an article about the 'Little Folks' Home; download from The National Archive Hospital Records Database, with information about the Home and its records