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Capt Llewellynn Gayle
WO2 Angus James and the members of the Worcester Afro- Caribbean Association. Our thanks are also due to Tony Thompson of Sweet Patootee Consultancy and Fran Stovold of the Army Museum Ogilvy Trust (AMOT). We must
John Freeman medal and this oral history project. The new displays to accompany this project are currently on order and due for installation in the new year.
The museum has received several important WWI archives of material including the letters of Sgt E. A. Spinks, Pte W. R. Radbourne and the interwar archive of Sgt. A Deakin, as well as the gift of an officer’s silver gilt belt plate of the Loyal South Worcestershire Volunteers, presented by Lt. Col Pat Love TD.
Our Friends’ organisation celebrated its tenth anniversary this year and remains
an integral part of the museum’s life and a much-valued source of support. Members of the Friends visited the newly refurbished National Army Museum on 12 September. They were met and briefed on arrival on the new thematic layout and then had time to tour the galleries before lunch. In the afternoon a conducted tour was arranged of the temporary Special Forces exhibition.
As part of Heritage Month in September the Friends conducted a series of free tours of
An Officer’s silver-gilt belt plate of the Loyal South Worcestershire Volunteers c. 1805
commander told new arrivals “When you cross that bridge (into East Germany) you are at war”.
Finally, the Museum would like to thank all those who have donated items to us
in the past year and we would also like to thank everyone for their continued support. Should you wish to donate anything to
the museum, or indeed volunteer, please get in touch with the Curator on 01905 721982 or email museummercian@ btconnect.com. The Museum now has
a new website! This can be found at the following address: www.worcestershireand mercianregimentmuseum.org. Please
do take a look. Any feedback would be gratefully received.
also acknowledge the generous financial support of the Director and Trustees of AMOT, which has over the last two years contributed £10,000 of grant monies towards the purchase, interpretation and display of the Black Drummers including the
tour with BRIXMIS. This organisation, based in Berlin during the Cold War, was tasked with patrolling East Germany to monitor Warsaw Pact troop movements to ensure they were not preparing to attack the West. It was a dangerous assignment which one
In the afternoon a conducted tour was arranged of
the temporary Special Forces exhibition.
the Regimental Gallery, and our thanks are due to Colonel John Lowles CBE.
Most recently, on 24 October the Friends were given an excellent talk by Lt Col Bill Temminck BEM on his
Cheshire Military Museum
Since our last update the museum here in Chester has had an interesting time with a number of special exhibitions and significant community involvement. During 2017 we saw the completion of the Modern Armed Forces and temporary galleries and In October we were successful in achieving Arts Council England reaccreditation. During 2018 the temporary exhibit space was used for a number of exhibitions.
RAF 100
On April 1st, 1918 the Royal Air Force was formed. To mark the centenary of formation we staged a temporary exhibition of 100 objects, reflecting the rich history of the RAF and links with the county of Cheshire. The display also included a number of artefacts from the Royal Flying Corps. Several members of the Cheshire Regiment transferred to fight in this corps before its amalgamation with the Royal Naval Air Service to form the RAF in 1918.
Fallen soldier’s paintings exhibited for the first time, 100 years after his death
Lt. Douglas Marshall Rigby was killed in September 1918. Almost exactly one hundred years after his death, his family realised their aim to publicly exhibit his remarkable paintings for the first time. These included water colours of northern landscapes, humorous caricatures and pencil drawings.
Fittingly, his artwork was exhibited simultaneously in three towns with which Douglas Rigby was most closely associated in his life: Here at the Cheshire Military Museum, in Knutsford where he and his family moved to shortly before the war, and in Buxton where he grew up.
Douglas Rigby’s water colours and etchings, as well as his letters from the war and family diaries and artefacts, were shown across the three exhibition sites. Each site revealed a different facet of Douglas Rigby’s story. Here at the Military Museum the emphasis was on his military
Douglas Rigby Self Portrait
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