Christmas Chocolate Box

Over Christmas 1914, seventeen year old Princess Mary wanted to send a Christmas present to every soldier fighting at the front. She organised a public appeal to raise funds and to create brass boxes for over 2 million service men and women.

The boxes were all embossed with the princess herself in profile and the names of Britain’s allies with the words “Imperium Britannicum” at the top and “Christmas 1914″ at the bottom.

There was a personalised feel to the boxes as the contents varied. Smokers received tobacco, for non-smokers there were boiled sweets and Indian soldiers received spices. Every box contained a Christmas card and a photograph of the princess.

This box – in the Staffordshire Museum Collection – belonged to one of the donor’s uncles from Stafford who served in the First World War.