Children and Military Lives – Stories of Adventure, Family and Exile Exhibition – 2 June to 24 November 2022 The new exhibition will tell the stories of today’s service children (children of serving British Armed Forces personnel) and their experiences of living life in the military community, as well as stories of children who become victims of war, experiencing the effects of military conflict – from Second World War evacuees…
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…
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…
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…
Operation Pig Ark – Uncovering an Anderson Shelter in 2019 In 2019 members of the SOFO Museum Team collected an Anderson shelter roof from a farm in Deddington, Oxfordshire, where it had been repurposed into a pig ark. The metal was attached to large wooden blocks which were anchored to the ground, so our team had to carefully prise the metal away from the wood to free it. The roof was in several parts…
Lockdown Lectures: Captain Ralph Kite – “A Very Parfit Gentil Knight” First Streamed: Tuesday 25 May 2021 (Archived Video and Q&A available now) The first of our Lockdown Lectures covering the Great War, A Very Parfit Gentil Knight explores a story that would be tragically familiar to many families during the era. Captain Ralph Kite died of wounds inflicted during the attack on Beaumont-Hamel during the Battle of Ancre on the 13 November…
Lockdown Lectures: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming First Broadcast 26 April 2021 – Archived Lecture Now Available Uncover The Secret Life of Ian Fleming, best known as the author of the James Bond novels, with Dr. Christopher Moran. Christopher Moran is a specialist in the work of British and American secret services and has worked as historical consultant to the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C. and is co-editor of the Journal of Intelligence…
Lockdown Lectures: The 52nd Foot at Waterloo As the Battle of Waterloo reached its momentous climax, Napoleon’s Imperial Guard marched towards the Duke of Wellington s thinning red line. The Imperial Guard had never tasted defeat and nothing, it seemed, could stop it smashing through the British ranks. But when the Imperial Guard was sent reeling back in disorder, the credit for defeating them would go to the 1st Foot Guards – then…
Oxfordshire Remembers 1914-18 Part II21st November 2017 – 2nd December 2018This exhibition is the second of two displays commemorating the 100th anniversary of the First World War for Oxfordshire. It features stories of Oxfordshire’s VC winners, women and children at war, conscription, and the truly global scale of a conflict that saw many Oxfordshire people sent to the western front and far beyond. With soldiers sent to Italy, Iraq, Greece,…
Academic, Community, Service Charities and Museums Collaborations The Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum has partnered with Iraqi Women Art and War (IWAW) since 2016. IWAW is a charity founded by Director Rana Ibrahim with the aim of preserving Iraqi identity and empowering Iraqi women, immigrant women, and vulnerable women by allowing them a space to share their unique skills. The museum hosted a preview exhibition ‘Of Ordinary Things’, an art exhibition…
