Collaboration
Iraqi Women Art and War
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 created by Rana and the group of women as well as ran family friendly workshops and a co-curated museum trail.
In October 2021 we partnered together for Little Amal Step by Step Workshop creating a puppet for Little Amal, a 3m tall puppet of a Syrian refugee child which visited Oxford as part of its journey from Syria to the UK. The following Summer in 2022, funded by the South East Museum Development Museum Development we again worked with IWAW women and their families on a gallery trail which took objects from the museum exhibitions as a stimulus for creating a new trail made from different types of material with Arabic and English captions.
Throughout 2022 the museum supported IWAW as the group delivered a pop up Iraqi café. The museum currently stores and looks after the IWAW collections.
Magdalen College School - Reflections
In the centenary year of the ending of the First World War we felt that it would be a powerful initiative to involve a major school in Oxford in something which could demonstrate how the war affected families in the County. Knowing how well Magdalen College School (MCS) are able to produce stage productions we approached them with the idea of doing something to enable people to reflect on the effects, lessons and consequences of the War. We were not disappointed. The school embraced the project.
Their sixth form researched three characters from our archives and some from their own and produced the most impressive musical. One of the individuals researched was Major Guy Blewitt, DSO MC of 2nd Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Major Blewitt (right) wrote six detailed wartime diaries filled with photographs, maps and letters. Originally from Hampshire, his father was a retired Major-General and Blewitt himself left the battalion to become a staff officer during the war. He had previously been the focus of a display in SOFO's 2014 centenary exhibit, Oxfordshire Remembers 1914 - 18 (Part I).
Lieutenan
t Charles 'Aussie' Stone (left) was another chosen as a character for the production, featured heavily in the museum's permanent Airpower display. From an Oxfordshire Family, Aussie moved to Australia in 1912 and worked as a chauffeur there. He returned to England in December 1916 after joining up in Australia and undergoing training. He would soon be transferred to the 69th Australian Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, with further training as a pilot at Queens College, Oxford and Port Meadow Aerodrome.
Exceeding expectations which were high from the outset, this film is a wonderful narrative of the project but the telling issue for us and from the students was the fact that most of the characters they portrayed, who suffered the war, were of a similar age to themselves and, as you will hear, made them identify well with their characters.
Our thanks to the Master and all the staff and pupils involved in the project and our Museum staff who assisted in the displays and research, for delivering such a successful outcome. It is often said, that the power of the story is not in the story itself but in the telling of it. That has now been done. Enjoy the film.
MCS Reflections from Magdalen College School on Vimeo.
MCS Reflections Full Show from Magdalen College School, Oxford on Vimeo.
Marlborough School - Woodstock Remembers WW1: Then and Now
The Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum has been pleased to support The Marlborough School’s project ‘Woodstock Remembers WW1: Then and Now’, led by students Alice Hipkiss and Isabel Wheeler, with school librarian Jo Onions. SOFO staff have advised the school on the shaping of the project and provided a venue for an exhibition of the girls’ research into the men commemorated on the Woodstock Memorial. In the months ahead the Museum expects to collaborate further.
The school recently received confirmation of HLF funding to allow the project to proceed in full. A programme of workshops and events will take place, including a Family History Session at the school. In addition, local people will be encouraged to share photographs, newspaper clippings, documents, letters and photos of keepsakes, as well as family tales. With help from professionals, the information gathered will be digitally recorded and an on-line interactive archive created where everyone can access and contribute information. The archive will also allow the public to discuss, contribute, share and research information about the First World War Home Front.
The ‘Woodstock Remembers WW1: Then and Now’ project allows Alice and Isabel to go above and beyond their original Legacy 110 work.
Legacy 110 is an award-winning initiative by the UCL Institute of Education and Equity which encourages students who engage in the First World War Centenary Battlefields Tour Programme to deliver a community-based First World War project.
The aim of Legacy 110 is for every participating student to create an enduring legacy by impacting upon at least 110 people within their local community. The original aim of this was that the total number of people reached by 2019 would equal 888,246, which is equivalent to the number of British and Commonwealth soldiers who fell during the First World War.
Alice and Isabel have already impacted far more than 110 people! The scheme as a whole has impacted over 15,000,000 people worldwide.
'The Indian Army in the First World War: An Oxfordshire Perspective’ (June to December 2017)
The Soldiers of Oxfordshire (SOFO) Museum and the University of Oxford’s History Faculty are delighted to have jointly received a funding grant from the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC). SOFO and the University will be working in partnership on the project, ‘The Indian Army in the First World War: Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Perspectives’, to shed new light on the British Indian army’s role in Iraq, through a unique outreach programme and a touring exhibition.
The project will bring together people of all ages from the local Sikh, Hindu and Muslim communities of Oxfordshire, to engage
with specialist researchers from the University. It is the first project in the UK to adopt such an intergenerational and multi-faith approach in working with the local community to learn collectively about the war and explore its history from a diverse range of cultural perspectives. The volunteers and researchers will together study SOFO’s previously unseen military heritage collections relating to the Indian Army’s activities in Mesopotamia (Iraq) in 1914-18. It is hoped that this research will reveal new insights into the wartime activities and experiences of British and Indian armed forces fighting in the Middle East; as well bringing to light a forgotten aspect of local history, about Indian military collaboration with soldiers and officers from the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.
The findings of the project will be showcased in an engaging and exciting travelling exhibition, which will highlight the shared history of British and Indian involvement in the First World War from an Oxfordshire perspective. The exhibition will explore the experiences of Indian soldiers, British officers and Iraqi prisoners of war through a collection of photographs from SOFO’s archives that have not been publicly displayed before, together with other fascinating objects from the museum. The project is also launching an appeal for members of the public (particularly from Oxfordshire’s Asian communities) to come forward with family stories or memorabilia that can be featured in the exhibition too. In doing so, the project aims to a present a fascinating range of new and perhaps challenging narratives that will connect local Oxfordshire history with wider issues of empire and war for the first time.
The Museum is proud to support the launch of this national effort to digitally capture, safeguard, and share these important personal items and reminiscences from the men and women of 1914-1918 to create a free-to-use archive acquired through local digitisation events across village halls, community centres, schools, and libraries.
If you would like to also support this initiative please download and display a copy of the poster or visit : 
https://oxreach.hubbub.net/p/lestweforget/
Oxfordshire Remembers 2018 War Memorials Project
In 2018 we will commemorate the end of conflict in the First World War- described at the time as the War to end all Wars. A group has been set up with the support of the Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire to help young people to understand the impact of the war. That group is running a project to make sure that the way the war affected people is not forgotten. Across Oxfordshire, primary schools are asked to record the details on their local war memorials so that all the names can be gathered together to give us a complete list of all the people who gave their lives in war over the past hundred years.
