Essex at War, 1914 – 1918: In pictures

Here’s a photo gallery (courtesy of photographer Paul Starr) of our Essex at War, 1914 – 1918 event, which took place at Hylands House on Sunday 14th September 2014.

Click on each photo to see them a little larger.

Essex Record Office

Talks in the Pavilion

Dr Paul Rusiecki

Members of the Essex Yoemanry Band entertain

Essex Yeomanry Band

Essex Yeomanry Band

Cakes on sale for Help for Heroes

Carriage rides

Poppy craft

Sarah and Tony chat to Lord Petre and Cllr Aldridge

The official launch of Now the Last Poppy has Fallen

Luke Wright shares his poetry

Luke Wright shares his poetry

Luke Wright shares his poetry

Vo Fletcher, Georgia Strand and Ric Saunders

Georgia Strand

Vo Fletcher

You can’t have a launch without food!

WW1 postcard craft

Education Update: Essex Police Museum

Our research volunteers have been working very hard to uncover stories from Essex so that they can be compiled into an exhibition, to be launched in September.

Meanwhile our museums have been meeting with teachers to work together to create educational sessions on the First World War, using collections, that will last beyond the life of the project.

Becky Wash from the Essex Police Museum has been working with volunteer Mick Ford and teachers from Chelmer Valley High School.

Here’s summary of their plans:

Research

Mick Ford has done a large amount of research relating to the Fire Brigade during the Great War.  A Fire / Police connection can be made with the L32 crash near Billericay, although the police museum does not have any material relating to the L32 crash. A model of the L32 is currently on loan to Stow Maries Aerodrome.

The museum’s main WW1 story is the L33 crash at Little Wigborough. This occurred on the same evening as the L32 crash, however there appears to be no fire connection with the L33 crash.

Volunteer Adrian Jones is currently researching the story of Zeppelina and Charles ‘Zepp’ Smith. Trustee Maureen Scollan is researching Dr Salter – a Special Constable and doctor who helped give birth to Zeppelina, and Special Constable Edgar Nicholas.

Schools

Mick is a teacher at Chelmer Valley School. He has introduced me to the art and history teachers and together we have arranged for a short assembly on March 12. The assembly will run with a powerpoint presentation. We have chosen ‘Zeppelins’ as our topic.

From our presentation, the year 9 pupils will create a piece of artwork based on ‘The Nightmare’  – a pastel on display at the museum. As an incentive I have offered to choose and display one student’s piece.

The history teacher showed keen for a loans box of objects, photographs and copies of original documents, laminated. This would be fairly simple to create, and there is funding within the project for this.

A combined ‘Emergency Services’ Loans Box could help boost outreach figures for both the Essex Police Museum and Essex Fire Museum and would also help with the limited time curators have delivering a session.

The history teacher was also in favour of visiting the museum for a delivered session and admitted that although it would be more difficult to arrange it would not be out of the question.

More information about the Zeppelin raids can be found in the Essex Police History Notebook No.7 and in our blog post Zeppelins over Essex. The L33 story was also featured on the BBCs WW1 at Home website.

This is a great start and we wish the Police Museum every success with their plans.

So what has the BBC ever done for us?

Written by Sarah Girling

I am a fan of the BBC, I don’t deny it. I enjoy Call the Midwife, Miranda, Dr Who, Sherlock… Yes, I’m a fan (and as you can tell, a woman of a certain age)…

Well, the BBC seems to have gone all out to ensure that everyone knows about the centenary of the First World War and as Tim Plyming, Executive Producer for the BBC has said in his blog:

“Central to the BBC’s ambition for the World War One season is the desire to reintroduce audiences to a war they think they know.”

So what has the BBC offered us, the viewers?

Firstly, there’s what will actually be on the telly. The trailer on YouTube is pretty good, including the song Pack up your Troubles, made popular during WWI.

Which brings me on to their second offer. BBC iWonder Guides are interactive guides designed for laptops, tablets and smartphones. One of the guides is Gareth Malone’s analysis ‘Why did Pack up your Troubles become the viral hit of WWI?’ and another looks at whether War Poetry has distorted our view of WWI.

If you came to the Researching the Great War day back in November 2013, you will have heard something about the BBC’s World War One at Home project from Stuart Woodward. I’m looking forward to hearing the 100 stories from across the UK.

There are podcasts and lots more, so I’ve signed up to their newsletter to stay informed about what’s coming up next…

There are links to other items on the website at BBC.co.uk/ww1  and you can read more about plans for TV and Radio by reading the blog of Adrian Van Kleveron, Controller of the BBC’s World War One Centenary.

Thanks for reading (and no I wasn’t paid by the BBC to promote this, I just think it’s jolly good!)

Researching the Great War

On Wednesday 20th November 2013 we held our training and networking event, Researching the Great War, for the project volunteers, partner museums and any other interested parties, at Essex Record Office. 

Networking over lunch

The course was organised by Sarah Girling and Tony Morrison, through Share Museums East.

The day included a wide variety of speakers from across Essex and some of their presentations can be seen here, including:

• Ken Crowe from Southend Museums: Ken Crowe’s Presentation
• Dr Rachel Duffett from the University of Essex: Rachel Duffett’s Presentation
• Josie Gale from the Imperial War Museum’s First World War Centenary Project: Josie Gale’s Presentation*
• author Paul Rusiecki: Paul Rusiecki’s Presentation plus Research Methods using materials at ERO Paul Ruseicki
• Martin Astell from the Essex Sound and Video Archive
• Allyson Lewis from the Essex Record Office: Allyson Lewis’s Presentation
• Ian Hook from the Essex Regiment Museum (Chelmsford Museums)
• Stuart Woodward from BBC Essex

*NB Please do not circulate this presentation more widely than within your organisations. The longer it is since the meeting, the more the information might become out of date and we would not want inaccurate information from IWM to be made public. Many thanks. Josie Gale.

Ian Hook, curator of the Essex Regiment museum

The lecture theatre was a great venue at the Essex Record Office.