The Man Behind the Medals In this blog series, SOFO Museum’s Research volunteers look at the stories behind some of the medal sets in the museum’s collection, from those that can be seen on a visit in our dedicated Medals display to some of those that are still tucked away in the archive. While medals will tell you a little bit about a soldier’s service, it’s only with further research that their…
The Man Behind the Medals In this blog series, SOFO Museum’s Research volunteers look at the stories behind some of the medal sets in the museum’s collection, from those that can be seen on a visit in our dedicated Medals display to some of those that are still tucked away in the archive. While medals will tell you a little bit about a soldier’s service, it’s only with further research that their…
The Man Behind the Medals In this new blog series, SOFO Museum’s Research volunteers look at the stories behind some of the medal sets in the museum’s collection, from those that can be seen on a visit in our dedicated Medals display to some of those that are still tucked away in the archive. While medals will tell you a little bit about a soldier’s service, it’s only with further research that…
Featured: The Great War POW Album and Pilot’s Log Book of Lt. Frederick Matthews Recently donated to the museum was an incredible collection of items relating to Frederick Matthews, often referred to as ‘Eric’, who served with the Queens Own Oxfordshire Hussars and later the Royal Flying Corps. Eric’s story is already featured in our Airpower display in the museum’s permanent exhibition space, alongside copies of images now part of…
Military Life: A Child’s Experience – Appeal for Objects & Stories From June until November 2022, we have a new exhibition, Military Life: A Child’s Experience and one of the themes it will explore is what life is like for the children of serving military. We are covering the 1950’s up to present day and have lots of current material but very little that cover 1950-1990. If you have any…
One of our recent acquisitions is Villa Patricia, which was donated by a local couple in Woodstock. The doll’s house was commissioned by Dr Richard Blaiklock who served with the Hampshire Regiment as Regimental Medical Officer. He was sent overseas to Southern Italy in 1944 to assist local hospitals, and from there was sent into several prisoner of war camps to assess the prisoner’s medical needs. One of the camps…
An incredible story from the SOFO Museum Archives, Captain J Shaw’s account of how he became a Great War POW and his involvement in a number of escape attempts was originally published in three instalments in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry’s Regimental Journal from September 1931 to January 1932. A few years later, in March 1939, the Journal would also publish a number of Shaw’s sketches of the tunnel which he…
Osmond Bartle Wordsworth – An Unknown Officer killed during the Great War has now been identified as collateral descendant of poet William Wordsworth In late October, volunteers at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock received good news after years of research that took them on a journey from a garden in Northern France to across the United Kingdom, Australia, The United States of America, Ireland, Canada -and back to…
Visiting the E H Shepard Archives In September our Collections Manager Peggy visited the University of Surrey archives to see their E H Shepard archives, with a view to a potential exhibition at SOFO in 2023. The initial research follows the story of Shepard during his service with the Royal Artillery in the Great War, and explores the stories of other creatives who served in the Army. Peggy said of…
Cavalry training manuals to go on display at SOFOFour cavalry training manuals from the collection at Blenheim Palace are due to go on display at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock in November 2021 including a copy of Field Service Regulations (1905) signed by Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough. These manuals offer an insight into the manoeuvres and training of cavalry regiments including the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars (QOOH),…
