Page 76 - MERCIAN Eagle 2020

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Cheshire Military
Museum
Geoff Crump
2020 has been a very challenging year for everyone. The Coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on the Museum. Long periods of lockdown have inevitably resulted in a large fall in visitor numbers and the cancellation of all group visits. Hopefully in the coming New Year there will be better fortunes for all and we will start to see some light at the end of what has seemed to be
a very long tunnel. The museum remains closed at present but we are hopeful to reopen in the New Year, subject to a review.
While the Museum has been closed to the public Museum Staff have had limited access to the building and have been working on the displayed collection and
in the stores. Joe has also kept the online shop running and website up to date. However, all volunteers were barred access to the Museum. This was largely because many of them fell into the vulnerable age group category and due to the difficulty in effectively social distancing with a full team in the building. We are really looking forward to welcoming the whole team back safely in the (hopefully) not too distant future.
The exhibitions programme was greatly affected by COVID-19 this year with a number of temporary displays being cancelled and rearranged. In the early
part of the year Alex Clark produced an exhibition entitled ‘In their own words’ which
Bust of Pte. T.A. Jones by Philip Garrett
looked at communication and the role of the Army Postal Service. The display also featured the work of pupils from St Marys College, Liverpool, who produced letters to the trenches during a school visit to the museum.
Sadly, the rest of the exhibitions programme for 2020 had to be put on hold. We hope to restart the programme in 2021 with the rearranged exhibition provisional entitled ‘Strike up the march’ which focusses on the role of music within the life of the Cheshire Regiment. We were due to display a small selection of Remembrance related art work in the autumn/winter period. This included poppies made by
art students at the nearby Catholic High School, Chester. The students had used broken and disused books to create the poppies. We look forward to displaying them when we reopen, albeit at a slightly unseasonal time. Later in the year we
are also planning to host the Royal Army Dental Corps touring Exhibition. Of course, all plans are subject to change in these uncertain times with precise dates and opening times to be published on the website.
Despite the difficulties 2020 has seen some wonderful new additions to the collection. An interesting donation was a collection of photographs, documents, medals and badges relating to military service of Major Harry Challinor. Harry enlisted into the Cheshire Regiment on the 9th September, 1920, and was posted to the 1st Battalion serving for a number of years with them in India. Harry was then posted to the 2nd Battalion. He served in Palestine and in 1937 he was a member
of the contingent selected to represent the Cheshire Regiment at the Coronation of King George VI. On the 28th of June, 1940 Harry was commissioned Lieutenant in the South Lancashire Regiment, he served with them until the end of the war reaching the rank of Major. The medals donated include; the General Service Medal clasp ‘Palestine’, the 1939-45 Star, Defence and War Medal, and the Regular Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal. However, Harry had a sixth medal to which he was not really
entitled, a duplicate issue of the Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal erroneously issued by the Army Medal Office,
both medals are named and numbered identically, duplicate issues
of medals are rarely
Small statue of Pte. T.A. Jones by Philip Garrett
Kings top 50 shooting Medal, part of the Harry Challinor collection
seen. In addition, sporting medals for athletics, hockey and shooting were donated. Challinor was an accomplished marksman. In 1933 he had gained an Army Rifle Association of India, Kings Medal,
for making the top 50 British Army shots, a large bronze medal won the following year again the Rifle Association of India, is inscribed ‘All India Runner up’. His service medals are now on permanent display and the sports medals are currently in our new acquisitions case.
During the lockdown period Joseph Murphy, Museum Assistant, visited the studio of well-known Liverpool artist Philip Garrett, Philip had contacted the Museum with an offer we could not refuse! When plans were made some years ago to erect a statue of the Cheshire Regiments first V.C. winner Private Thomas Alfred Jones, in his
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