Help Yourself Society , fundraising charity

In 1923, the London Stock Exchange Dramatic and Operatic Society decided to put on additional performances to provide funds for hospitals. In order to augment the money raised, a Christmas Draw was organised and people and businesses in and around the Stock Exchange were invited to donate prizes. A separate organisation, the Help Yourself Society, was formed in 1927 to run these fundraising activities. Subscribers to the Society were entitled to a draw ticket for each subscription paid (originally half a crown). The funds raised were distributed amongst institutions and organisations nominated by the trustees of the Society. Many of the gifts donated for the draw were deliberately of a comic kind and from 1926 details were published in a catalogue. This became the Help Yourself Annual which was published until 1950 when it was replaced by a gift list, later by a newsletter and subsequently by a list of prizewinners. After the Second World War, with the creation of the National Health Service, the Society shifted its support from hospitals and large institutions to smaller charitable organisations which relied on voluntary contributions for the bulk of their income. The Society was wound up in 1986.