Page 123 - MERCIAN Eagle 2015

The Cheshire Military Museum
The previous year has been a busy and exciting one at the museum in Chester with a continued focus on the centenary of the Great War and many smaller exhibitions and projects. Topics covered have included Gallipoli, food and the end of the Second World War. Our new director Andy Manktelow has been appointed and took up his post in June 2015. I am sure that the wider Mercian community will join the staff and volunteers at the Cheshire Military Museum in welcoming Andy.
Cheshire Rifle Volunteers
2015 has seen a number of objects donated to the museum associated with the Cheshire Riflfle Volunteers, part-time soldiers who served between 1859 and the formation of
the Territorial
Army in 1908.
Items include
the sword
presented
to William
Oldfifield on his
promotion to
Quartermaster
in 1888. When
commissioned William had served with the Macclesfield detachment for twenty-eight years, he was in post for a further five years until his retirement.
A second group of items associated with the rifle volunteers arrived just a few weeks later. These related to George Henry Duncalfe of the 1st Battalion, and consisted of his volunteer long service medal and several shooting prizes. One of the prizes is a pewter tankard won for the simultaneous Enfield rifle competition, a national competition in which twenty men from units throughout the country fired seven shots at each range (200, 500 and 600 yards) and their scores were totalled and an average for the unit given. The competition on the 8th April 1865 was
won by the team of the 1st Battalion,
recorded in the Chester Chronicle on 15th April of that year. The tankard and medal will be placed in the permanent displays later
in the year. Interestingly we have received
a further donation of a brass cornet which is inscribed 1VBCR, the same unit in which George served – I wonder if he heard it played? The cornet has seen better days but after a little TLC, it too will be placed in the gallery.
With the digitisation of part of the archive associated with the rifle volunteers these objects will help us tell a fuller, more interesting account of our early volunteer units who stood ready to defend the country in the event of invasion.
The Depot during the Great War
The continued digitisation of our archive has highlighted a number of important
Ch
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THE MERCIAN EAGLE
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