King's Own Royal Regiment Museum

Trustees

Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Warren (Chairman)
Colonel John de Cordova OBE
Major Philip Oglethorpe TD
Lieutenant Colonel Peter Dew
Lieutenant Colonel Dennis Stopford
Mrs Sara-Jane Dennis
Major Danny Parsonage
Colonel Simon Strickland OBE (ex officio - Regimental Secretary)
Mr Paul Thompson (ex officio - Lancaster Museums Service)

Staff

Peter Donnelly BA AMA - Curator

Major J S Byrne PhD - King’s Own and King’s Own Royal Border Regiment

Whilst this report covers the financial year up to March 2008 it is considered appropriate to mention the passing of Major J S Byrne PhD.  Syd’s contribution to the regimental museum over the years has been substantial and is hard to sum up in a few lines.  He and his wife Cynthia were founder members of the Friends of Lancaster City Museum and both frequently attended private views, talks and other special events.  Syd was a frequent visitor to the museum for both social and business reasons and would often arrive with an interesting press cutting with a regimental link which otherwise would have gone un-noticed.  It was a pleasure to work with Syd in his capacity as chairman of the Chapel Trustees on events such as the Centenary in 2003, and always good to receive his advice on regimental matters.

Syd Byrne will be missed by all of the museum’s staff and our condolences are offered to Cynthia and other members of his family.

Overview

Another busy twelve months have flown by, and sometimes it is hard to believe that it is actually a year since the last report was prepared. The museum continues in good health, visitors are still coming through the door and more than ever are looking at our website.  There are challenges which we all face, costs are increasing across the board but some, such as postage, more noticeable than others.  As mail order sales continue to be a good source of income we have to ensure that our costs are covered which ultimately means increasing prices to our customers.

The museum has a good reputation in the military museum community and is frequently called upon to offer advice to other museums and to take part in trials and projects which will be of benefit to the wider community, which we are always willing to do. We were pleased to host a visit from Defence Internal Audit, who also visited the Tank Museum, Royal Engineers Museum and Royal Artillery Museum.  As we are not funded by the Ministry of Defence we were used as a comparison to those which are. The auditors quizzed the curator and the chairman during their visit and initial feedback was most positive. We look forward to the report in the summer.

Trustees

The annual trustees meeting was held in November and a report on the museum’s activities was given by the Curator.  The Chairman welcomed the creation of the co-ordinating group of all the museums within the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment and was keen to encourage co-operation between museums whilst retaining the independence of each of the Museum Trusts.

Mr Thompson informed the meeting that the proposed move to Lancaster Town Hall will not go ahead, with both costs and public opinion being against the project. 

The trustees learnt with sadness of the resignation of two museum designers, Wendy Moore and Andy Hornby, who had done much for the King’s Own Museum over the past two decades.  A vote of thanks was given for their work.

Collections Management

The curator continues to monitor and take care of the collections, whether they are held in store or on display.  More protective polyester envelopes for archives and photographs have been purchased and the museum now holds a good stock.  These clear envelopes allow items to be viewed, and even photocopied, without the originals having to be touched.

New acquisitions are all ‘accessioned’ and documented before being stored or used in displays.  Many First and Second World War photographs are digitally copied and added to the website, sometimes on the day of acquisition!  Work continues on improving the documentation of items already in the collection, indexing of names of photographs often has rewards when the information can be used to answer enquiries.

The arrival of a large number of items of regimental silver resulted in a considerable amount of time being spent in cleaning them and cleaning items already on display which suddenly looked tarnished by comparison!  Polishing silver is a somewhat mundane job, but has bright rewards with a sparkling display of items covering two centuries!

Research

Work continues on both the museum’s own collection, and those held elsewhere, on improving documentation of the photographic collection and where possible matching dates, locations and even names to photographs.  This takes considerable time and has to compete with more pressing demands but is often combined with the publication of the images on our website, which increases public access and the likelihood of sales of photograph.

Digital copies of various records held at The National Archives at Kew have been made:

It is hoped that the latter two will be transcribed and added to the museums lists and indexes.

The museum took part in the Army Museums Ogilby Trust/National Archive digital access project and found access to the TNA’s records via the internet most useful.  Medal Index Cards for soldiers who served with the King’s Own and other units in the First World War are really useful, as indeed is having access to Prisoner of War records.  The trial has been a great success and is expected to be rolled out to other museums over the summer.  A small fee is payable by each museum to be permitted access.

Finance

Fund-raising is always at the forefront of everything we do, for without the funds the museum raises our activities would be severely limited.

The museum is pleased to record the financial support of the following organisations:

No claim was made to the Inland Revenue under the ‘Gift Aid’ Scheme during this financial year.  The claim will be made in the next financial year and is expected to be just under £400 for 2007-08. 

A full statement of accounts for the year will be presented at the Trustees Meeting, November 2008, and will be available on request following the meeting.

The museum received confirmation that the Heritage Lottery Fund would support the acquisition of the archive of General Sir Archibald Hunter.  The grant and acquisition of the material will be made in the next financial year, but the grant support is in the region of £13,500.

Sales in the museum shop and by post remain vital to fund-raising and a number of new items, including model soldiers by W. Britain, have been added.  These ‘pocket money’ items are complimented by a range of books and presentation items, as well as the traditional ties, buttons and badges.

War Diaries - Digitisation Project

The project to digitise the First World War diaries has been completed, and all are now available on cd-rom from the museum shop in person, or by post. The project has the double benefit of making the information easily available whilst preserving the original diaries which no longer have to be photocopied which was one of the major causes of damage, especially to the binding.

The following war diaries were digitised this year to complete the project:

The table below illustrates the number of each diary sold in 2007/08.

Each cd-rom is priced at £12 each and is available from the museum shop to personal callers or by post.  Full details of the project can be found on our here.

Website

The website continues to grow in size and the number of visitors has grown month on month.  About 11% of those visiting the website arrive via the ‘front page’ which means the remainder are accessing via a search engine (such as ‘Google’).  Users are therefore clearly looking for specific topics, which hopefully they are finding answers to on the website!

There have been many additions, including the photo gallery pages:

In addition, an exhibition of portraits has been produced to mirror a display in the museum.  The museum’s collections have also not been ignored and there is an almost complete listing of our medal collection, including name, rank and number of the recipient. 

As time and resources permit the website will continue to be expanded.  It is well worth a visit - the home page being www.kingsownmuseum.plus.com 

Web Statistics: www.kingsownmuseum.plus.com

Since it’s launch in August 2005 there have been 64,751 visitors.

Enquiries

It has been another busy year for enquiries with a total of 1248 ‘curatorial’ enquiries having been answered.  This is a rise of 83 compared to the previous twelve month period.  The interest in family history and therefore military history shows no sign of reducing.

The museum has been pleased to assist with a number of major works through the year.  Assistance and photographic images have been provided to John Hutton, the Member of Parliament for Barrow in Furness, who is writing a book on the Kitchener battalions of the King’s Own who served on the Western Front in the First World War.  It has been a great pleasure to work with Dr. Jean Moorcroft-Wilson on her biography of Isaac Rosenberg, the poet and artist who served with the 11th ‘Bantam’ Battalion of the King’s Own and was killed in action on 1st April 1918 with the 1st King’s Own.  The curator was able to attend a book launch and lecture by Jean held in London.

Talks & Activities

The curator has undertaken a number of general and specific talks relating to the history of the King’s Own.  New talks are always being developed, but old favourites, such as a brief history of the King’s Own are always popular.

The curator as spoken to the following groups:

The museum also supports, by provision of the venue, the monthly meeting/talks programme of the North Lancashire Branch of the Western Front Association.

Work with outside bodies

Exhibitions

The opportunity arose to redecorate the stairs within the gallery and this resulted in a change of the material on display.  The result is that there are now more items on display and included for the first time is the War Memorial from the Unitarian Church which has recently been acquired by the City Museum collection.

The acquisition of the portraits of Lieutenant Jonas Fawson (circa 1809) and Private Henry Watson (circa 1831) resulted in a display featuring some of the other portraits in the collection.  All of the portraits are displayed both in the gallery and on the museum’s website.

A Lewis Gun and Bren Gun along with details on the manufacture of a .303 round have been included on the Mezzanine Floor, and as a Bren Gun is also displayed in the World War Two section, this allows close comparison of the two weapons, one mainly used in the First World War, the other in the second.  They are also located in close proximity to the Vickers Gun.

The museum is grateful to WO1 Jon Wilson of the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment who kindly sent some material back from this tour in Afghanistan.  These items have been included in a display which also covers Iraq.

Modern technology and a kind donation from Major Pat Roberts has allowed more than 200 photographs from the First World War to be displayed in the trench scene.  A ‘digital photograph frame’ displays each of the photographs for about three seconds on a loop system.  All of the photographs, with captions, also appear on our website.

The Curator is a personal member of the following organisations:

The Museum is a member of:

Acquisitions

It has been another year with some fantastic donations.  Of particular note is the Military Medal to Corporal Alexander Gray, of Morecambe, who was later commissioned into the Northumberland Fusiliers.  This medal group has since gone on display.

The re-organisation of the regiment has resulted in a number of silver items being transferred to the museum from County Headquarters in Carlisle.  Most of the items received went straight on display after a good polish!

Already mentioned above are the portraits of Lieutenant Jonas Fawson, who was killed at San Sebastian in 1813 and Private Henry Watson, circa 1831.  One acquired by donation, the other by purchase, with support from the War Memorial Village, Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment and the Lancaster Military Heritage Group.

The Heritage Lottery Funded acquisition of the archive of General Sir Archibald Hunter has gone ahead as planned, however much work remains to be done on the transcription of the letters prior to their publication on the museum’s website.  The work is taking more time than originally expected but should be completed by next year.

The full list of acquisitions follows:

Acknowledgements

The trustees and curator would like to take this opportunity to thank the many people who have helped and supported the museum.  There are many hundreds, for everyone who has donated financial, purchased something in the shop or donated objects for the collection have all made a valuable contribution.