King's Own Royal Regiment Museum

Trustees

Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Warren (Chairman)
Colonel John de Cordova OBE
Major Philip Oglethorpe TD
Colonel Peter Dew
Lieutenant Colonel Dennis Stopford to Nov 2009
Major James Welsh
Major Danny Parsonage
Major Mike Brandwood TD (ex-officio – County Secretary, Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment)
Mr Paul Thompson
(ex officio - Lancaster Museums Service) Staff
Peter Donnelly BA AMA - Curator


The museum is supported by Lancaster City and Lancashire County Councils.

Obituary - Mrs Edith Tyson

A former curator of Lancaster City Museum has died, aged 83.
Edith Tyson was instrumental in making the museum what it is today, over seeing the complete re-cataloguing of the collections and creating a matching re-display.

Born in October 1926, Edith began her working career immediately after World War Two.

Her first museum job was at the Harris Museum in Preston, then under the care of art historian Sidney Paviere, and Edith followed his example in her ability to pick important pictures.
She moved on briefly to Oldham, as a gallery assistant between 1950 and 1952, and in 1951 she married Bert Tyson, who was then still in the Royal Navy on National Service. She had a daughter, Christine, in 1953 followed by Ricky (Erica) in 1957 and Bob in 1961.

They moved to Ribchester in 1954 where she looked after the Roman site museum there, while Bert worked in Preston.
In 1965 the family moved to Lancaster, and Edith took over the curator role at the museum, which had slept since the departure of Gilbert Bland, the former librarian and curator. With one other member of staff and a collection in a complete muddle, she began a complete re-cataloguing of the collections, and a matching re-display.

Lancaster Museum quickly became a model of how to do things on a shoestring, especially the ambitious exhibition programme which she instituted. She also upgraded the displays and cataloguing of the King’s Own Regimental Museum and provided a first-rate enquiry service, for which it is still well known.

She rapidly became one of the most revered curators in the North West and took on many young protégées, to whom she taught the basics of museum care. She gained the Museums Diploma and was awarded the Fellowship of the Museums Association, and was particularly proud of this as well as becoming president of the North West Federation of Museums. In 1978 Edith masterminded the opening of the Cottage Museum in Castle Hill as an example of how the less well-off lived, while the Judges’ Lodgings Museum, opened by the county council in 1977, owes it existence in good part to her planning and support.

Edith took early retirement due to ill health in 1983, leaving others to establish the Maritime Museum in the former Custom House. She enjoyed a long retirement, accompanied by Bert, her husband of nearly 59 years, her books and her cats.

She died after short illness on 7th March 2010, and leaves her husband, children and three grandchildren. Her funeral took place at Lancaster Crematorium on 23rd March.


Overview

Once again it is time to pause and look back over another twelve months of busy activity in the King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum. This year has marked the 80th Anniversary of the foundation of the museum and it is a pleasure to record another successful year.

Over 46,000 visitors passed through the door, an increase on the previous year, 1,200 enquiries have been answered and more than 51,000 people have visited our website. Nearly 100,000 people have used our services in one form or another.

The museum continues to do more, with the curator increasing links with local schools, more ‘hands-on’ meet the soldier character sessions in the museum itself, and for the first time we hosted a birthday party for an eight year old!

Against the positive things the museum has to face increasing costs. Postage, for example, has increased considerably. To print and mail out a leaflet or a newsletter about a new exhibition or forthcoming events costs nearly 40p. Whilst it is much cheaper to use the website (and our Facebook page) to promote what we do – not everyone is on line or signed up to our Facebook page. As ever the more money which the curator can raise – the more the museum can do.

This report illustrates many positive things the museum has achieved in the past twelve months, the ‘How we have changed!’ exhibition illustrates eight decades of progress. Let’s hope that this success will continue for many more years to come.

Trustees

The annual trustees meeting took place in November 2009. Colonel Dennis Stopford retired and gratitude was expressed for his many years of service to the museum. Consideration was given to new trustees and Major Steve Firth MBE and Mr John Hardy both agreed to join the committee, with a view to becoming a Trustee in the future.

The Chairman said that it had been a most satisfactory year, attendance figures were up with an increase in sales in the museum shop. This might reflect the high regard for the Armed Forces within the community.

The Trustees took note of the Duke of Lancaster’s Regimental Council Instruction on Museums.

Charity Statement of Purpose and Public Benefit

The King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum provides a ‘living’ history of the character, activities, tradition and history of the British Army and in particular The King’s Own Royal Regiment, Lancaster. This is achieved through the preservation, interpretation and display of artefacts, archives etc for the purposes of historical research, information and education and the enjoyment of the general public.

Environmental Statement

The King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum is committed to do what it can to reduce our impact on the environment. Where possible the museum uses recycled materials, and certainly great effort is made to re-use envelopes for both correspondence and sales, this also saves money. We re-use paper, use recycled paper, and recycle all sorts of waste material from paper and cardboard to tin cans and glass. Writing and printing on the back of paper is such a simple way to minimise on waste. Public transport is used where possible and of course the curator is a keen cyclist.

The Energy Performance Operational Rating of the City Museum building is 54, which rates the museum as ‘C’. ‘A’ being the most efficient, ‘G’ being the worst, and a rating of 100 would be typical for our type of building.

Collections Management

Documentation of the collection continues for both new items and items which have been in the collection for many years. Two major projects have been completed with the resulting detailed documentation appearing on the museum’s website. Two archive groups, relating to the 1st/4th and 1st/5th Battalions in the First World War have been thoroughly documented. Each single piece has received a unique number and the details recorded. Some items are as mundane as the weekly returns of the battalion barber, others items are medal recommendations and a couple of sets of papers relate to Courts Martial. It is only by knowing exactly what is in the collection, and making this information accessible that the true value of the collection can be appreciated.

The curator continues to monitor and take care of the collections, whether they are held in store or on display. A regular programme of inspection takes place to ensure everything is well cared for.

The museum has purchased a stock of storage boxes and ‘Secol’ polyester sleeves used to carefully store photographs and archives. The existing supplies were exhausted and a bulk purchase, at £2000, reduced the unit cost. It will be sometime before the museum needs to re-order supplies.

Finance

Sales remain healthy in both the museum shop and by post. There is a continued decline in donations received, especially in response to enquiries. The museum does not make a charge for enquiries, however we suggest a donation may be made. More donations are received from postal enquiries than email enquiries. The curator includes a request for a donation in the body of the text of an email, and each page of the museum’s website requests support.

Fundraising continues to be one of the hardest tasks. The museum received no legacies in this financial year.

Donations received in response to enquiries and other fundraising:
2009-10 £4055.256

Sponsorship for Land’s End to John O’Groats Cycle Ride
£1,900
Money received from Inland Revenue under the ‘Gift Aid’ Scheme
2009-10 £949.69

A full statement of accounts for the year will be presented at the Trustees Meeting, November 2010.

80th Anniversary Sponsored Cycle Ride – Summer 2009

To mark the 80th Anniversary of the Regimental Museum, the curator, Peter Donnelly, rode 924.38 miles from Land’s End to John O’Groats in seven days, and has raised more than £1900 for the museum’s acquisition funds. The solo Land’s End to John O’Groats ride took place between 18th and 24th June 2009. Peter was supported by a friend, Chris Knight, who volunteered to drive the ‘support’ vehicle.

The route included overnight stops at Tiverton, Ludlow, Lancaster, Moffat, Crainlarich, Inverness and ending in John O’Groats. The night stops were fixed, therefore the daily mileage was also fixed, however some days ended up being longer than planned! The longest day was 150 miles and the shortest was 118 miles! The total time in the saddle was 53 hours, 51 minutes and 11 seconds.

Money raised from the sponsorship will be added to the museum’s acquisition fund. A big thank you to everyone who has supported the ride!

Publications

The museum did not publish any books this year, time not permitting. However the curator did assist with information and images for a number of forthcoming titles by other authors and publishers. Included is “The Abyssinia Expedition 1867-1868 Regions Caesar Never Knew” by Michael White, which uses many maps and images from the museum’s collection.

Working with Easingwold based G H Smith & Sons, seven of the museum’s First World War trench maps have been digitally copied and reproduced in printed format at 7/10th scale.

The maps, each of which is priced at £3.75:

The most popular are the Salonika maps as this is probably the first time any maps from the theatre have been reproduced.

The Regimental Curator has continued to contribute articles to the Nostalgia pages of the Lancaster Guardian. This has included:

A range of information sheets and publications are made available to visitors on the history of the King’s Own. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission also kindly supply a range of free full colour leaflets and booklets cover their work as well as the history of the major campaigns of both World Wars.

War Diaries – Digitisation Project

The War Diaries on CD-rom remain very popular with 76 being sold over the year, sadly not as many as previous years, but still a good source of income and sharing information held in our collections.
 

Overall total sold 278 copies.

Website

Encouraged by the continued use of the museum’s website it has been regularly updated and expanded through the year. The content of the website has now expanded what was being ‘hosted’ free of charge and during the year the museum started a monthly subscription to the same internet service provider. There are elements to the website and its operation which had we known when it was started we would have done differently – but still the website is one of the best of any regimental museum in the country.

Additions during the year include the following:

Nearly ten thousand items from the museum’s collections are now listed or appear on our website, representing one third of the museum’s collection.

As time and resources permit the website will continue to be expanded.

Web Statistics: www.kingsownmuseum.plus.com

Overall totals from Aug 2005 - 166,810 visitors

Enquiries

Nearly 400 fewer enquiries were answered this year compared to last, however 1218 enquiries remains a large number, some of which can be answered in twenty minutes, others taking a bit longer. We cannot always answer every enquiry, but if we don’t have the answer we usually know where it may be found.

Again the Curator attended all three days of ‘Who Do You Think You Are? Live’ at the National History Show at Olympia in February 2010. The King’s Own Museum was represented at the ‘Military Memorabilia Checkpoint’ organised by the Army Museums Ogilby Trust who requested volunteers to assist with the identification of objects, archives and photographs as well as providing information on family and regimental history. The Checkpoint was more popular than the previous year, indeed the organisers allocated more space than in 2009. The Curator attended all three days and made a significant contribution to dealing with a few thousand enquiries! AMOT plan to organise a stand for the 2011 show, again at Olympia. Involvement in this allows for the promotion of all Regimental Museums and by spreading knowledge of what we do hopefully encourages visitors.

By far the majority of enquiries to the museum are received by email, and answered by the same means. Sadly the number of financial donations received in response to email answers if far fewer than those received by post. Each answered enquiry is accompanied by a statement: “Whilst the museum’s enquiry service is free, as a charity we rely on donations in order to allow our work to continue.” Hopefully donations will recover to previous levels. Raising funds is a job which is probably harder than answering the enquiries!

Talks & Activities

The curator has undertaken a number of general and specific talks relating to the history of the King’s Own, the titles of which are listed below. New talks are always being developed although these are often time consuming. A number of days work goes into a single hour long presentation! Over one thousand people have taken part in the following events:

Schools Sessions:

Film footage from the museum’s collection has been used by:

Work with outside bodies

Exhibitions

“How we have changed!”
To mark the museum’s 80th Anniversary a temporary exhibition was created which included photographs of the opening of the museum in December 1929 and views of the displays in the 1930s and 1970s. Along with the photographs were a number of objects, including some of the first items donated to the museum, and the original paperwork which came with them. The exhibition was also on our website.

“The Last Post”
In March the Curator was responsible for a major exhibition in one of the two temporary exhibition rooms at the City Museum. The Museum Service borrowed in a travelling exhibition from the British Postal Museum which looked at the Post Office in the First World War. The exhibition was enhanced with photographs, letters and objects from the King’s Own collection. The display included a scene based upon a battalion’s postman’s hut with parcels ready to be delivered to front line troops. Lists of items sent in the post were based upon the information from the records of Captain Albert Hodgkinson, the Quartermaster of the 1st/5th Battalion of the King’s Own throughout the First World War.

Special mention must be made about the hut. Sadly the original hut ordered could not be delivered to the museum, so with the assistance of WO2 Neil Barnett the curator purchased a wooden garden shed from B&Q in Lancaster and wheeled it down the main A6 to get it to the museum. It’s not everyday you see two men and a garden shed on a trolley!

The exhibition runs into the next reporting year.

The Curator is a personal member of the following organisations:

The Museum is a member of:

Acquisitions

Acknowledgements

The operation and continued success of the museum is only possible through the help and hard work of many. Without this help and volunteer support the museum would certainly not be what it is today. There are many hundreds of people who support the museum, for everyone who has donated financially, purchased something in the shop or donated objects for the collection have all made a valuable contribution.

A special thank you goes to those who sponsored the curator on the 80th Anniversary Cycle Ride between Land’s End and John O’Groats, however special mention must go to Christopher Knight who supported the ride by driving the support vehicle.

A number of volunteers are working on specific projects and to them thank you: Howard Martin; Gaynor Greenwood; Elspeth Griffiths; Pat and David Shackleton and Mr Rodney Ward, inspector of the museum’s accounts.

Financial donations are always vital to the continued operation of the museum, but ‘help in kind’ is just as vital, sometimes more so! The kind assistance with the provision of accommodation to the curator on his London visits, is acknowledged from Martin Evans and Jackie Britton. The curator would not have been able to attend meetings, training sessions and assist with the manning of the AMOT ‘Military Memorabilia Checkpoint’ without their help.

Thanks are also extended to Fergus Read, WO2 Neil Barnett, WO2 Darren Szymanski, Major Simon Walton, Captain Max Davison, and the staff of the photographic department at Boots, Lancaster, for their assistance and support through the year.


Peter Donnelly BA AMA
Regimental Curator
King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum
Market Square
Lancaster
LA1 1HT

Curator Telephone: 01524 555619
Museum Telephone: 01524 64637
Fax: 01524 841692
Email: kingsownmuseum@iname.com
Website: www.kingsownmuseum.plus.com

Registered Charity Number 272109