Gladys E. Reed

The National Maritime Museum published a lovely blog post today as part of International Women's Day commemorating the wartime artist Gladys E. Reed. Reed joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) in 1943 and over the next two years, while serving in Liverpool and Birkenhead, she sketched her fellow WRNS at work and leisure. After the war, Reed offered her sketches to the NMM who procured fourteen of her drawings. Nothing of Reed's later life is known and the museum recently issued a public press appeal to try and learn more about her.

Reed had a talent for capturing her colleagues in unguarded moments and, if anything, her works remind me of the sketches of Gabriel Bray who had a similar talent for recording the day to day lives of his shipmates 150 years previously.

Wren torpedoman servicing torpedo tubes

Night Journey – naval personnel asleep in a railway compartment