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The Cheshire Military Museum
Caroline Mannion
Cheshire’s Great War Stories
In the last twelve months the museum
has continued to focus on the Great War
in the run up to the centenary. In addition
to commemorating the deeds of the Regiments represented in the Museum, one of the main projects has been Cheshire’s Great War Stories, a project which focusses on a number of aspects of the war including the home front, recruitment, medical care and remembrance. The project, which
was started as an initiative by the Cheshire Military Museum, involves a range of cultural and community groups from throughout the historic county of Cheshire. It has benefited from funding by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The museum has been heavily involved
in a number of the strands within the
main project including hosting one of the community roadshows where members of the public brought in items relating to the war which were recorded to make a central database of material.
One of the most rewarding parts of the Cheshire’s Great War Stories project has been working on Mabel’s War. We used the notebooks and sketchbooks of Mabel Harriet Earp a volunteer nurse during the Great War. These archives have been digitized so that they could be used more easily.
Mabel worked at two convalescent hospitals in the local area; one at Frodsham and the other Oaklands, Preston Brook near to her family home.
The project has been two-fold, we have worked with a range of local community groups to produce a creative response to
the archive material. This included a new drama piece performed by Minerva Arts Youth theatre, art work and poetry projects with West Cheshire College. The museum also worked with Manley Primary school a small rural school near to Frodsham. The children learned about Mabel’s Life during the Great War and produced a scrapbook which reflected their lives today. They also visited the museum to learn more about the First World War.
Following the completion of the initial phase of the project Caroline Mannion
of Cheshire Military Museum and Lorna Kernahan from the Grosvenor Museum continued to research into Mabel’s life. This work culminated in a temporary exhibition held in the Spring. During the project
we were lucky to meet with members of Mabel’s family who loaned a number of items to the museum for the temporary display. Since the end of the exhibition we have begun looking at the service of the soldiers who wrote in Mabel’s books and received her care.
Anniversaries
2014 was always going to be a busy
year for any Military Museum, with the Centenary of the start of The Great War and the 70th Anniversary of D Day and other major battles of World War 2. We tried a new venture, working with the Museum
of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards to present an exhibition to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Nunshigum which gained the 3rd Carbiniers, one of
our featured Regiments, a Battle Honour,
it was a great success and we hope to
do something similar next year to mark
the 200th anniversary of Waterloo. There were also exhibitions to mark D Day, the Battle of Mons, in which the 1st Battalion
of The Cheshire Regiment played such an heroic part, and at the end of the year a special one to mark the Christmas Truce, as recounted in the diary of Lt Charles Brockbank of the 6th Battalion of the Cheshire Regiment.
THE MERCIAN EAGLE