Representatives of the Trust, Bucks branches of the Royal British Legion, and a group from The Lee were all present at a centenary commemoration in France of the Battle of Fromelles on Sunday 17 July. Organised with the communities of Fromelles and Fleurbaix, a ceremony was held at Le Trou Aid Post, at which wreaths were laid by the Chairman of the Trust, Lieutenant Colonel Simon Wilkinson, who is also County President of the RBL. The ceremony was followed by refreshments and a visit to the new Fromelles Museum, where the Trust has ensured that the sacrifice of the 61st (South Midland) Division is reflected alongside that of the Australians. In the evening, there was a concert in Fleurbaix church, playing music by composers who were participants in the Somme campaign, many of whom were killed. Representatives of the Trust also laid a wreath in commemoration of the 2/1st Bucks Battalion at the Rue du Bois Cemetery, which contains the bodies of an estimated 52 unidentified members of the battalion.

On Monday 18 July, representatives of the Trust then visited Pozieres British Military Cemetery on the Somme to lay a wreath in commemoration of the members of the 1/1st Bucks Battalion lost in the operations of the 48th (South Midland) Division around Pozieres between 21 and 23 July 1916.

An offical county party led by the Lord Lieutenant, Sir Henry Aubrey-Fletcher, Bt. was also present at the Australian-dominated commemoration at Fromelles on Tuesday 19 July, the actual anniversary of the battle there.  

For Bucks TV’s film of the events, see www.buckstv.co.uk/centenary-commemoration-of-the-battle-of-fromelles-2016/

Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock

Saturday 17 September 2016

1000-1600

To coincide with the centenary of the Battle of the Somme (1 July-18 November 1916), members of the public are invited to bring along Great War photographs, letters, diaries and objects to tell their stories. Experts from the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum, the Bucks Military Museum Trust, the Western Front Association and other organisations will be on hand to talk to visitors about the significance of their memorabilia, and to help them to find out more. Living historians will be giving demonstratioins and there will be displays, activities for children, and support for research into soldiers’ lives. Refresments available.

 Free entry but donations appreciated.

Marlow Remembers WW1 Associaton and the Marlow Society

Sunday 11 September 2016

1000-1600

The Old Brewery, High Street, Marlow

During the Great War, Wethered’s Brewery turned to the production of munitions, its work force including many women. The wartime role of the brewery will be remembered with guided tours of the former brewery premises, an exhibition on the brewery in the Great War, and the unveiling of a plaque to the four brewery workers killed while serving in the Great War. Two of those killed served with the 2/1st Bucks Batalion, a third with the 1/1st Royal Bucks Hussars, and the last with the Lincolnshire Regiment.

Bucks Military Museum Trust

Old Gaol, Market Hill, Buckingham

From 12 September 2016

An exhibition on the role of the 2/1st Bucks Battalion at Fromelles from 18-19 July – a diversionary operation to support the Somme offensive – and of the 1/1st Bucks Battalion at Pozieres on the Somme from 21-23 July 1916. If 1 July 1916 is seen as a catastrophic day for so many units from the North and Midlands then the period between 18 and 23 July is the Buckinghamshire equivalent. A total of 322 men from the two battalions became casualties in these six days, of whom 203 were killed.

On each occasion, the Bucks were next to the Australians, whose fate has become far better known. This exhibition restores the balance in recounting the story of these two controversial actions.

Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock

From 1 August 2016

This new joint exhibition by BMMT and SOFO will depict the story of the auxiliary forces of the two counties from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries including the Militia, Yeomanry, Volunteers, Volunteer Training Corps, and Home Guard. It will focus on the military, social and political aspects of the auxiliaries including the role in home defence and in aid to the civil power, overseas service, and the controversies of the militia ballot. It will draw on uniforms, photographs and prints, and documents from the collections of both trusts.

Bucks Military Museum Trust

Saturday 2 July 2016

1000-1600, The Old Gaol, Buckingham

Learn about the Bucks Great War Virtual Trail

Search our databases of Bucks servicemen in the Great War

Get advice on researching Great War lives

Bring in your memorabilia for identification

Display of uniforms and equipment

Display on the Bucks Battalions on the Somme and at Fromelles

Talk on Bucks in the Great War at 1100

High Wycombe Museum

3 July 2016

A follow-on from the Tell Them of Us 2014 centenary pageant. Pupils from John Hampden Grammar School and Wycombe Abbey School will join volunteers from local history groups to take visitors back to 1916. Step back to a time when Wycombe families waited for news from France. Hear stories of townsfolk who made uniforms, worked as VADs, helped in munitions factories, or made aircraft. A cemetery tour with a difference. 

Details from museum@wycombe.gov.uk

Whaddon, 8 and 9 May 2016

Georges Begue was the first agent of SOE’s F Section to parachute into France on the night of 5-6 May 1941. He sent his first message from Chateauroux to MI6’s Section VIII at Whaddon Hall on 9 May 1941. On Monday 9 May 2016 a specially written and coded commemorative Morse message using contemporary equipment will be sent from Chateauroux to Whaddon. Guest speakers, short films and an exhibition will feature in a two-day programme of events in the village highlighting Whaddon Hall’s role in wartime intelligence and in supporting the work of the Political Warfare Executive.

For further details, see www.secret-ww2.net

In conjunction with the Centre for Bucks Studies at Aylesbury, the Trust’s secretary, Professor Ian Beckett, has received a grant of £11,955 from the ‘Gateways to the First World War’ Centre at the University of Kent for a research project based on the casualty books of the 1/1st Bucks Battalion, 1914-18. These unique records, which are held in CBS, detail such aspects of military life as leave and training periods, illnesses and wounds, and disciplinary offences. Together with the order books of B and C Companies (1915-18), and a Company Trench Log from 1915-16, the records will be fully digitised for a comprehensive database. Apart from the academic value of the data, the project will be an invaluable aid to geneaologists researching Bucks servicemen in the Great War. Digitisation will be carried out by a specialist contractor but volunteers will be recruited by CBS to transcribe the data.  

Volunteers wishing to assist in transcription should contact Laura Cotton at CBS at www.buckscc.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/centre-for-buckinghamshire-studies.

Waddesdon Manor

From 23 March 2016 onwards

Around 100 letters have been discovered by an electrician laying new cabling in the roof of the Five Arrows at Waddesdon. They are believed to have been sent between Eliza Turnham, the landlord’s daughter, and her sweetheart, James ‘Jack’ Wilson Cox, the son of Miss Alice de Rothschild’s chauffeur. Jack enlisted in the OBLI and went overseas in early 1915.

Waddesdon Estate’s archivist, Catherine Taylor, said, ‘We think that Eliza must have hidden the letters away, and they are one of the most significant recent finds at Waddesdon. Eliza was 13 years older than Jack and, in some of them, it seems like writing between an older sister and a younger brother. But in others, he talks about “perhaps stealing a kiss”, and they are very romantic. It’s really intriguing.’

Jack survived the war and returned to Waddesdon, living close to Eliza. He worked, like his father, as a chauffeur for the Rothschilds. In 1923, however, he married a girl from Luton. Eliza never married, dying in 1953.

Selections from the letters are to go on display at Waddesdon Manor from 23 March, as part of the Tales from the Archives Exhibition.

For further details, see www.waddesdon.org.uk