An embroidered silk cushion, showing HMS 'Surprise'. The cushion cover has a white satin front and pink back. It is lace edged, machine-sewn and embroidered with a starboard broadside view of the vessel in silk, using long stitches, 'HMS SURPRISE' on a scroll below, two flower sprays placed above. The donor's father W. J. France was a Leading Seaman on 'Surprise' in 1921, and the embroidery was made by another member of her crew at about this time.

Originally the Russian yacht 'Razsvet', 'Surprize' was seized by the British on 24 September 1918 and commissioned. She was renamed in 1920 and used as a despatch vessel; the Admiralty sold her in 1923. She was hired and then purchased by the Admiralty at the beginning of World War II and was destroyed by fire at Lagos on 28 February 1942.