Page 108 - The Royal Lancers Chapka 2017

106 REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL LANCERS (QUEEN ELIZABETHS’ OWN)
Museum Report for the Regimental Museum of the 9th/12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales’s)
2017 proved to be another busy year in Derby. In June, Derby’s Silk Mill Museum hosted the nationally acclaimed Weeping Window of Poppies, which commemorates the centenary of the First World War. It is made from a cascade of several thousand handmade ceramic poppies, and they poured from the top of the Silk Mill Museum tower to the ground below. The display was seen by tens of thousands of people, and drew visitors from around the country. It was complemented with an exhibition in- side the Silk Mill Museum which included items from the 9/12L Museum, and looked at how we remember those who we lost in conflict 100 years ago.
Later this year, to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War, I will be leading an exhibition which will look at the last year of the war and the immediate years that followed. The exhibition will examine the impact of the war on the soldiers who came home, and the people they came home to. It will also look at how the armistice was commemorated and remembered by Derby and its people. The exhibition will run from 20th October 2018 to 20th January 2019, if you get the opportunity please take the time to come along and see it.
This year we will be introducing a new schools’ session in part- nership with the education team at Derby Museums Trust. It will focus on local heroine Florence Nightingale, who did so much to improve the conditions soldiers served in during the Crimean War. Florence was a prolific writer, and one of her letters was
on behalf of Private James Whybrow, 12L, who was a patient in the barracks hospital at Scutari. The schools’ session is aimed at 5 to 7 year olds.
The museum has benefited from some great new
acquisitions this year including the purchase of a collection of 24L badges. The 24L was raised in December 1940 from a cadre of personnel take from the 9L and the 17/21L. We were also giv- en two partially completed field message books belonging to the Earl of Airlie who commanded the 12L and was killed during the charge at Diamond Hill during the Boer War.
In addition, Mr S A Reynolds generously donated two photo- graph albums which belonged to his father Mr G F Reynolds, who served with the 9L during the First World War. They cover the First World War and the Regiment’s service in the Rhine- land immediately after the War.
Your regimental museum is here for you. Please get in touch if you have any questions or suggestions. The Museum has a website which is hosted at www.9th12thlancersmuseum.org. My email address is angela@derbymuseums.org.
AMT