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awarded to the Regiment in the Western Desert. The medals were purchased
for £1320 with the assistance of a V&A grant. The second group appeared for sale on eBay and comprised the 1914/15 Star and an identity bracelet belonging to Private 3352. F. T. Jones, 1/8th Battalion. Worcestershire Regt. A quick search of the museums catalogue showed that the Museum already held his British War and Victory Medals.
In common with most military museums, we have signed up to the “Ogilvy Muster” for the digitisation of our WW1 archives. This nationwide, Libor funded project, will digitise military collections between the 1890’sand 1920’s. On 3rd September,
57 boxes of Boer War and WWI archival material, were dispatched to London from Dancox House for scanning. The material includes 65 photograph albums, 1595 loose photographs, 29 bound volumes,
52 archival ephemera boxes, 194 glass photographic plates, 250 WWI trench maps and 162 WWI aerial photographs. Most of this material is unpublished and will eventually be made available to the public for the first time. This marks a very important step forward in our digitisation programme for the collections. Post scanning, our challenge will be the production of metadata which identifies the
individual images and allows them to be searched on the digital platform.
In October, the Museum took part Worcestershire’s Black History Month (1st to 31st October) celebrations by highlighting the story of Drummer John Freeman
a “Black drummer” of the 29th Foot.
John Freeman born in Antigua, served a Drummer for 18 years with the 29th Foot. He gave his age as 14 years when he enlisted at Swinley Camp, Surrey in 1800. His service with the Regiment during the Peninsular War qualified him in due course for the Military General Service Medal 1793- 1814 with four of the five clasps awarded
to the Regiment. His is the only MGSM of a Black Drummer to survive and is now held by the Museum. Freeman was discharged in 1818 with a spinal injury and was awarded a pension of 6 pence per day as a Chelsea Hospital outpatient. He was finally admitted as an in-pensioner in 1850 at the age of 64 years.
Finally, as part of its ongoing collections care programme, the Museum has secured a grant from the National Manuscript Conservation Trust to conserve the Farrington Papers, which were donated
to the Museum in 1932 by Colonel Farrington’s Family. They date from between 1694 to 1710 and include the original indenture signed between the
One of the Farrington papers: An indenture between Colonel Thomas Farrington and James and Stephen Pigon, Merchants of London, for the supply of his newly raised Regiment of Foot, dated 1694
Crown and Colonel Thomas Farrington to raise the regiment. They form collectively the foundation documents of the 29th Foot (The Worcestershire Regiment). Work is currently underway not only to clean and conserve these fragile manuscripts but
to create high resolution digital copies for display and study purposes.
Staffordshire Regiment Museum
Peter Collins, Director
A warm hello from all of us at the Staffordshire Regiment Museum. 2020 was certainly a strange year for us all and we at the museum are certainly looking forward to a brighter 2021.
For those that are not quite familiar with all that has been going on at the museum, here’s a quick overview of 2020 for us. We of course closed in March in accordance with Government guidelines and after a tremendous effort by our
staff and volunteers we reopened at the start of August with lots of measures
in place to keep of us and our visitors safe. During the summer we were able
to welcome a number of visitors to the museum, especially at October half-term. In November we of course closed again and we remain closed at the moment like most of our peers. As 2021 progresses we look forward to, hopefully, being able to see many of you at the museum.
2020 also saw us saying goodbye
to our former Curator and Director, Ms Danielle Crozier. Danielle had been with the Museum for nearly 10 years, first as a volunteer and later as a member of staff. I took over from Danielle in early November, so certainly an interesting start for me!
Danielle, supported by the wonderful staff and volunteer team the museum, has developed greatly over the years and there is a truly excellent platform for me and the team to build on.
This year sees a number of anniversaries including the 30th anniversary of the First Gulf War in 1991 in which the 1st battalion of the ’Staffords’ were heavily involved in. 2021 also
marks 140 years since the formation,
in 1881, of both the North Staffordshire and South Staffordshire Regiments.
The Staffordshire Regiment Museum Image taken by: Terry Fidgeon
These Regiments amalgamated as the Staffordshire Regiment in 1959 and in 2007 the Staffords came together with the Cheshires, Worcesters and Sherwood Foresters to form the Mercian Regiment. Both important anniversaries that we plan to mark this year.
All of us in the museums recording
the heritage and achievements of the antecedent regiments of the Mercian Regiment will hopefully be able see many of you all at some point 2021 when the situation allows.
THE MERCIAN EAGLE
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