Physical Culture Display button, 1916, Education Department of Victoria : Miss R Cambridge Accession Number: REL41894

Description

Domed round brass button badge with a nickel plated finish, impressed centrally with 'EVD' and 'To Help Our Boys 1916'. Contained within wreath scrolls below are the words 'Physical Culture Display'. A stickpin is soldered to the reverse.

Contextual Description

Part of a collection of badges which were collected by Miss Ruth Cambridge, daughter of a Boer War veteran, probably Private Owen Cambridge, First Victorian Contingent.

The Physical Culture Display 1916 badge was awarded by the Education Department of Victoria which was actively involved in wartime fundraising in the First World War. Programmes included the Young Gardeners League, the Young Workers' Patriotic Guild, concerts, fundraising and food for soldiers in hospital, especially the Caulfield Military Hospital, and constant letter writing to soldiers abroad. Some £300,337 was raised by the Department during the war.

A booklet on the Department's first two years work, 'How we Raised the First Hundred Thousand' states: 'Among the most successful efforts made by metropolitan schools to raise money for the Fund were public displays of physical culture in November 1916. The marching, the folk dances, the maypole dances, the tableaux, were highly appreciated by the spectators.' It is likely that Miss Ruth Cambridge was involved in one or a number of these displays, which were mounted at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. See AWM image H16097.