Birkenhead's angel of mercy sends X'mas greetings to her friends in Birkenhead and Wirral and appeals again for Birkenhead General Hospital.

This is a collecting stocking (probably) from the late 1920s to raise funds for the Birkenhead General Hospital, situated on Park Road North, as part of that year’s Christmas appeal. These white net stockings would have been hung up in shops, cafes, pubs etc. where people could slip coins into a gap at the top, being collected later and returned to the hospital. Before the NHS, hospital funding was not just from a central governmental source. The 1944 annual report for Birkenhead General Hospital shows income from local fund raising, annual subscriptions, donations and bequests, interest from investments, endowments of beds and cots alongside grants from local and central government. Birkenhead had a Lady Collectors group and Hospital Linen Guild which provided sheets and towels. The card at the top of the stocking shows a nurse holding a model of the Hospital on a tray against a pale blue background. 4 ambulances drive from right to left below her and there is a repeated holly motif along the top. The hospital appears to have been founded in 1828 (known as Birkenhead Borough Hospital until 1926) and closed in 1982, its services being transferred to Arrowe Park Hospital.