Following a 4-year project funded by a LIBOR grant from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Army Museums Ogilby Trust (AMOT) is excited to launch The Ogilby Muster (TOM). TOM is an online platform which provides access to the First World War archives held in Regimental Museums across the UK. Launching during Remembrance month, TOM has preserved the experiences and memories of those who served in the First World War for future generations.

With over 75 participating collections, and more set to join in 2022, TOM will eventually hold over 2 million items including some never-before-seen material. Covering the period 1900 to 1929, the platform contains documents, photographs, letters, diaries and more, all related to the British Army and the men and women who served.

TOM will be an essential tool for anyone interested in military, social or family history. You can use it from the comfort of your own home, exploring material which is held across the UK while staying in one location. With all material digitised, users can search knowing that there is a visual copy available to see. If you need any extra direction, you will be able to contact the relevant museums directly and speak to their expert Archivists and Curators.

The Hon. Mrs Katherine Swinfen Eady, Trustee of the Army Museums Ogilby Trust, commented:

“With the opening of the TOM Platform we are given a wonderful key to unlock history. As historians this is an invaluable gift, as family members researching their beloved lost relatives, it is equally as important. TOM allows us to piece together the truth left behind by the subjects, to build up that wonderful pattern of a jigsaw and find the missing fragments of information. It is especially important as it will help us all further our knowledge and understanding of not just the military side of the First World War, but the social aspect of an event in history that affected and shaped this country and the world.”

Lieutenant General Sir Philip Trousdell, former Chairman of the Army Museums Ogilby Trust added:

“In The Ogilby Muster, the Army Museums Ogilby Trust has created an enormously powerful research tool for students, family researchers, historians and those with even a casual interest in the First World War. This project honours the memories and experiences of those who served in the Army in ‘The War to End all Wars’, their families and their communities. The museums from which these archives have been mustered have rich collections of artefacts ready for you to examine.”  

The Ogilby Muster will go live online from Wednesday 3^rd November 2021.

Records included from the BMMT collection include those of the Bucks Battalion in 1908, and the 1/1st, 2/1st and 3/1st Royal Bucks Hussars.

Researching a Village in the Second World War: Whitchurch

Professor Ian Beckett

7-8pm Wed 24 Nov 2021

Live via Zoom

The Second World War has entered popular memory as the ‘people’s war’.
Whereas just 1,570 British civilians died as a result of direct enemy action in the First World War, British civilian war dead in the Second World War totalled 66,375.

One constantly recurring wartime theme was of the English countryside as visual shorthand for all that was at risk. On 24 August 1940, H. V. Morton, the journalist and travel writer, encapsulated much of the rural vision in Country Life: ‘It came to me that one of the most remarkable things about this war is the quiet way England has, for many of us, ceased to be a country, or even a county, and has now become a parish.’ It is perhaps appropriate then to look at one particular wartime parish.

The talk will examine the sources available for studying the local history of the Second World War from servicemen and women to the Home Guard, other emergency services, agriculture, fund raising, the impact of national events, and two unique aspects of wartime experience – ‘Winston Churchill’s Toyshop’, and the connection to Mrs Miniver.

The talk will not be recorded

Book your free tickets here: https://bit.ly/3iP2GQg

The new exhibition, ‘A Well Regulated Militia: Citizen, Soldier, and State’ at Fort Ticonderoga Museum, New York State, focuses on the history of the American militia in the colonial period, Fort Ticonderoga is using examples from its collections to illustrate the trans-Atlantic connections to the English militia. One exhibit is one of the two Bucks cannon purchased by the museum in 1926 at the sale of Stowe, these being originally presented to the Royal Bucks King’s Own Militia by county subscription in 1794. Usually, both are displayed on the ramparts of the reconstructed fort but one has been brought inside for the exhibition. It is shown alongside a copy of the watercolour of the artillery attached to the Bucks militia – in this case a government-supplied cannon – executed by Sir William Young in 1793. The original of Young’s watercolour is in the British Library whilst the story of the Bucks cannon at Ticonderoga was told in ‘A Tale of Two Guns’ in Bugle and Sabre 2 (2008).

For details of the Ticonderoga exhibition, see

Sunday 15 August 2021

2.50 – 5.00 p.m.

A service to commemorate Wing Commander George Laurence Bazett Hull DFC, buried at Oving, who was killed when his Mosquito aircraft crashed in Leicestershire on 17 May 1946. It will also commemorate the 1942 crew of his Bristol Blenheim, the remains of the aircraft having been recovered by the Field Detectives group.

A Primrose Path: The Gilded Life of Lord Rosebery’s favourite Son by Martin Gibson is being republished by Arum Press. The Hon. Neil Primrose, second son of Lord Rosebery and Hannah Rothschild of Mentmore, was Liberal MP for North Cambridgeshire from 1910 until his death in 1917. He was briefly Under Secretary of State at the Foreign Office in 1915; and then Liberal Chief Whip in 1916 alternating parliamentary and active service in the 1/1st Royal Bucks Hussars, in which he was commissioned in 1909.

Primrose was killed in action against the Ottoman Turks at Abu Shusheh, Palestine on 15 November 1917 whilst serving with the regiment. Two days previously, he had taken part in the charge at El Mughar.

The result of extensive research, Martin Gibson’s book tells for the first time the story of this member of the Liberal political elite, including his friendship with a previous officer of the Royal Bucks Hussars, Thomas Agar-Robartes, briefly Liberal MP for Bodmin in 1906 and for Mid-Cornwall (St Austell) from 1908 until his death in 1915. Agar-Robartes transferred from the Royal Bucks Hussars to the Coldstream Guards in January 1915 and was killed in September that year.

Available in hardback @ £20 plus p&p direct from the publishers, www,arumpress.co.uk/books

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‘Known onto God’ Lost in the Battle of Arras (a WWI detective story)

Wednesday 17 February 2021

2000 hours Online Talk

Tom Shannon, Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum

Identifying an unknown officer of the 5^th Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry lost at Arras in May 1917 whose remains were found in 2013

Please register your interest by emailing:
secretarybucksha@gmail.com

Price: free for members, donations welcome

Membership of the Buckinghamshire Branch of the Historical Association costs £12 annually from October each year.

Monday 18 January at 1900 hours

In the opening hours of D Day – 6 June 1944 – a small glider-borne coup de main force from the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry seized key objectives in Normandy ahead of the main landings which marked the start of the invasion of Europe.  This is the story of the men in this operation, what happened when they hit the ground, how they took on their German enemies and why their actions that day will always be remembered in that part of France.

This lecture is one of the Army Flying Museum’s Lockdown Lecture series and was created in partnership with the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum.

Just visit the website and watch online using your web browser (Google Chrome recommended).

There is no ticket charge or pre-registration required for this event, but please consider donating if you enjoy the talk–

www.armyflying.com or sofo.org.uk

BRINGING HISTORY HOME: 12-13 SEPTEMBER 2020
Curated by Buckinghamshire Archives

Dad’s Army in Bucks: The Local Defence Volunteers and Home Guard

By Professor Ian Beckett

Sunday 13 September 2020

6 p.m.

This year, the popular annual history fair is going all-digital, in response to the challenges of COVID-19. In collaboration with local museums, libraries, and cultural organisations, there is an exciting, varied programme for all ages. Sign up for email updates, or follow on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

https://buckshistoryfestival.co.uk/

Stone Local History Group

Sunday 10 November 2019

Exhibition in Stone Village Hall

1130-1730

Refreshments