“Secret Buckinghamshire” Webinar Series – Registration Now Open
Our “Secret Buckinghamshire” Webinar Series continues with three more talks coming up in the autumn. The talks will be hosted on Zoom and registration is now open. You can sign up at tiny.cc/9dkiuz .The lectures are free to attend but please consider making a donation to our ‘war chest’ to help us to maintain the military history of Buckinghamshire. You can donate here. Just click on the Virgin Donate button.
The first lecture of the Autumn series is entitled “Walls Have Ears: Latimer House and Wilton Park and the Second World War”. Presented by Dr Helen Fry, it will focus on the important role played by these well-known Buckinghamshire houses in supporting Britain’s ‘Secret War’.
Dr Fry is Honorary Research Fellow at University College, London, an ambassador for the Museum of Military Intelligence and a trustee of the Medmenham Collection of military aerial photographic interpretation and imagery analysis. She is the author of The London Cage: The Secret History of Britain’s WW2 Interrogation Centre (2017), The Walls have Ears: The Greatest Intelligence Operation of WW2 (2019), and M19: A History of the Secret Service for Escape and Evasion in WW2 (2020). Currently, she is writing a biography of the M16 spymaster, Thomas Kendrick.
Oving Commemoration Day
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.
The Primrose Past
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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Bletchley Park, British Intelligence and the Second World War
History Professor John Ferris has been named the “Authorized Historian” in chronicling the history of its British communications intelligence agency (Government Communications Headquarters). Ferris stands next to an Enigma machine, a type of enciphering machine used by the German armed forces to send messages securely.
Wednesday 7 April 2021
1900 Hours (Virtual Talk)
Professor John Ferris, Official Historian of GCHQ
In the first of a series of talks on ‘Secret Bucks’ in WW2, Professor Ferris will discuss the role of the Bletchley Code-breakers in Allied victory
Professor Ferris is Professor of History at the University of Calgary and was selected to write the first authorised history of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in 2017. Behind the Enigma: The Authorised History of GCHQ, Britain’s Secret Cyber Intelligence Agency was published in 2020. It challenged the myths of ‘eccentrics overcoming the odds, the enemy, and the establishment’.
To book please visit zoomtalk@bmmt.co.uk
You can now view the talk on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/wxqawCqx_fs
Buckinghamshire Historical Association
‘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 5th 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.
The Pegasus Bridge Story: Online Talk by David Innes
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
Buckinghamshire History Festival
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/
The Great War In and Around Stone
Stone Local History Group
Sunday 10 November 2019
Exhibition in Stone Village Hall
1130-1730
Refreshments
2019 Viney Memorial Lecture
James Holland, ‘A New Look at Normandy’
Advance Notice
Friday 11 October 2019, 7 p.m.
Aylesbury Waterside Theatre Second Space
Tickets £22 from:
www.atgtickets.com/aylesbury and 0844 871 7615
Launch of “Whitchurch, The Fallen and the First World War”, by Professor Ian Beckett
Royal British Legion
Whitchurch and District Branch
Tuesday 8 October 2019, 7.30 p.m.
Whitchurch Church Hall
Refreshments and signed copies available
Donation to the Trust
The Trust is delighted to announce that it has received a grant of £1,300 from the Bucks Masonic Centenary Fund and a further donation from the Grenville Lodge towards the cost of a computerised MODES system. This will enable the Trust to fully document its collections and continue to meet Museum Accreditation requirements.
Lieutenant Colonel Simon Wilkinson, BMMT Chairman, received the cheque from Bucks MCF representative Andrew Hough at the Old Gaol in Buckingham.
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