The Museum reflects on the success of their grant project.
A large memorial to men of the 324 Battery 94th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment Royal Artillery is part of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry regimental collection. The memorial has suffered age related deterioration in its wooden frame, resulting in the marble plaque breaking into pieces.
Although the memorial remembers men of the Royal Artillery, it is closely linked to the KOYLI. The 94th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment Royal Artillery was created in 1941 from the 8th Battalion King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. Many of the men remembered on the memorial were originally soldiers of the KOYLI.
The funding from AMOT was used to pay for a conservator to repair the frame. Our contracted conservator Graham Key spent a week working on the memorial.
The restoration involved:
Two volunteers were recruited to research the 18 individuals remembered on the memorial. The volunteers have been able to identify service and civilian information for all individuals remembered on the memorial and they have completed 16 of 18 research profiles, with the final two to follow by the end of the year. We are in the process of uploading the final research packets to the Heritage Doncaster website on our dedicated project page.
Our volunteers have also successfully contacted the families of some of the individuals on the memorial. This has given us access to their rich family knowledge, photographs and paperwork, further deepening our understanding of the lives of those commemorated.
Among them are the family of Lieutenant Ernest Carter, the first casualty on the memorial, who shared images and information from their family archives and the son of Gunner John Boulton, the last casualty on the memorial. John Jr didn’t even know the memorial existed. He was able to visit to see his dad’s name and meet our conservator Graham and thank him for his work on it. John was only a toddler when his dad died in 1945. He kindly brought with him photographs and documents relating to Gunner Boulton, including some of his designs from his time working at Royal Doulton. He’s given us permission to reproduce these and add them to our webpages and research files.
John with the memorial.
Memorial shortly before being transferred from the Royal Artillery to the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry Regimental Collection in late 1970s/early 1980s.
We have also been contacted by an individual whose father served in 324 Battery and was a close friend of one of our casualties, Ken Mumby. We were able to share information about Ken with the individual, and receive photographs and information from his father’s papers.
We anticipate that now that the 324 Battery information is online, with more to follow, that we will receive many more enquiries like these going forwards. We will be able to continually update the project page with new information as we receive it, and as our researchers uncover more.
As well as the individual research profiles that have been put online on our project page, we’ve also now have a better understanding of the major actions the 324 Battery were involved in, particularly those where multiple casualties from the same action appear on the memorial board.
We are currently exploring options for displaying the memorial board, considering its unique conservation needs. We will be taking this forward working with the conservator and our display team after the end of the project.
The two research volunteers on this project enjoyed their time volunteering with us so much, we are retaining them as volunteers. They are moving onto other collections projects within the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry collection once this project is completed.
The final impact this funding has had is to remember Lieutenant Carter, Gunner Dobbs, Signalman Niven, Gunner Nunn, Gunner Gillett, Bombardier Wright, Gunner Woods, Sergeant Dean, Gunner Smith, Gunner Rickwood, Gunner Batty, Sergeant Hudson, Gunner Camm, Sergeant Martindale, Bombardier Mumby, Gunner Collins, Sergeant Bullock and Gunner Boulton and commemorate their ultimate sacrifice.
