NEWS RELEASES
We'll Keep the Home Fires Burning - Horsham During WWI
3 January 2008
To paraphrase that guilt ridden phrase used by World War One recruiters; what did you do during the winter of 2008? Hopefully your duty - by visiting the unique and fascinating exhibition at Horsham Museum: “We’ll keep the Home Fire’s Burning - Horsham during World War One". For the first time in Horsham’s history the exhibition tells the rich, largely forgotten story of how the town folk united in a patriotic cause to fight the Germans. It is a genuinely eye-opening exhibition using material never before seen on public display. No other museum could tell this story the way Horsham Museum has because no other museum has such a rich vein of World War One posters - not those produced by the Government but those by local clubs, charities and local government.
Displaying material borrowed from national museums as well as local lenders there are surprising stories to tell. Displays range from a rare copy of an account from 49 year old Horsham resident John G Millais, who today has a girls school named after him, but who was then a British spy in neutral Norway, to the stunning Arabian coat worn by Shipley resident Wilfrid Scawen Blunt when entertaining Prime Minister Asquith and Winston Churchill. Blunt’s was a remarkable wartime story, for he was the old man of foreign affairs, his council and views were sought by the high and mighty particularly on Arabia, a region he had explored with his wife. He also entertained his old courtesan, the celebrated Skittles who would later be a favourite of the Kaiser, before Germany became our enemy - what stories and indiscretions she would tell Blunt about the Emperor can only be guessed at, but Blunt passed on those stories to his friends in high places.
Against the stories of famous people the lives of ordinary Horshamites are recounted by the everyday objects from World War One, shoes, dresses with a military cut, photographs, hats etc, as well as some of the objects donated to the Museum during the war years - some surprising objects. What was even more surprising though was that in the height of war a young Lieutenant, a former pupil of Christ’s Hospital School joined the Museum Society, one Edmund Blunden, one of the Great War poets. It is thanks to Christ’s Hospital that unique items belonging to this famous member of the Museum Society will be on display.
How the people at home learnt about the war is explored through rare survivals from contemporary illustrated journals to a map produced for articles written by Shipley resident Hilaire Belloc. Belloc, a man who would be satirized for knowing nothing about the war, became a media celebrity, filling column inches, lecture halls across Britain and his own coffers - money he would dramatically lose because of the Russian Revolution. Against his story is that of a future Horsham doctor who kept a wartime diary, illustrating it with cartoon characters, which is rather more restrained but in some respects more fascinating. We have borrowed two of those diaries from the Imperial War Museum to go with Dr Geoffrey Sparrow’s Military Cross that his son gave to us.
These stories are told against a backdrop of objects and images, from a rare photograph of Horsham’s first flag day with a Southdown sheep, the symbol of the Sussex regiment, to ladies from the War Supply depot who parcelled up medical supplies in what was a domestic house sending them across the continent, to extracts from the incredible Roffey Camp newspaper, written and published by soldiers stationed at Roffey for some 6 months whilst they trained to fight.
This is a story that hasn’t been told before, the fight at home, and it is one that has taken many months and a team of researchers to pull together. “We’ll keep the Home Fires Burning” doesn’t relate the history of actual battles but of winning the war at home. It also marks Horsham Museum’s contribution to commemorating the end of World War One that occurred 90 years ago.
Looking Ahead: During 2008 the Museum will be associated with several activities themed around World War One, starting with this exhibition. The Museum and Friends of Horsham Museum will publish an anthology of contemporary documents illustrating and expanding the themes covered in the exhibition. That will be followed by a major history of the events in Horsham’s History Volume III, before culminating in October 2008 with an exhibition and publication about those who died and are remembered on Horsham’s War Memorial.
The internationally known historian and author of the First World War, Dr. Keith Grieves will be opening the exhibition “We’ll keep the home Fires Burning” at 11am on 11 January at Horsham Museum. As well as writing about Sussex during World War One he has also researched the fascinating story of Horsham’s war memorial.
So when you are asked “What did you do during the winter 2008” you can truthfully say - I saw an amazing exhibition at Horsham Museum about World War One.
The exhibition will run from the 11 January through to the 19 April 2008.
For further information please contact the Curator, Jeremy Knight,
Horsham Museum
9 Causeway, Horsham, West Sussex RH12 1HE
Tel: (01403) 254959 Fax: (01403) 282594
Email: mailto:museum@horsham.gov.uk
Website: http://www.horshammuseum.org/