News - World War One museum and trench plan for Doncaster

TALKS have started over plans to set up a World War One-themed visitor attraction and a memorial to Victoria Cross winners in Doncaster.


The plans have been put to Doncaster Council by the Victoria Cross Trust, which has held preliminary talks to ask if there are any possible sites in the borough.

The plans would create a number of jobs in the borough if it goes ahead, and the trust believes it could be built for about £500,000.

Gary Stapleton, Victoria Cross Trust founder, said: “We are looking to bring this to Doncaster and we are in talks with Doncaster Council for a suitable location.”

Under the trust’s plans, a World War One trench system would be dug to show visitors how British troops lived and suffered during the 1914 to 1918 war, which saw almost 900,000 British soldiers, sailors and airmen killed.

There would also be a museum explaining the facts behind the war, so future generations can understand what those who fought it went through, and focusing on the lives of those involved.

It would be combined with an area of trees, each one to serve as a memorial to a holder of the Victoria Cross, the highest award in the British military for courage in battle, with a museum looking at their lives, with many living in poverty after leaving the forces.

The project would see 1,353 trees used as a memorial to the VC winners, many of whom do not have a grave because their bodies were never found. Mr Stapleton sees a link with World War One, because it was the conflict which produced the largest number of awards of the medal, including several from Doncaster.

Mr Stapleton said: “The other part would be a living World War One museum, complete with a trench system and actors in period costume from World War One.

“We have interest in the project from a re-enactment society who may become involved.

“This is not going to be pro war. It will be pro bravery. The plan we have would be of huge benefit to Doncaster.

“It would create quite a number of employment opportunities and we would be looking at doing some modern apprenticeships.

“It would be of huge educational benefit, and we have event had messages of support from Canada.”

The plan would involve groups of volunteers as well as paid staff.

The public would be unlikely to be able to walk through the main area of the replica trench, but Mr Stapleton hopes to build a viewing platform where they would be able to walk along to see what is going on. But there may be a walk through area of trench created.

He believes the attraction would enhance Doncaster’s appeal as a destination, adding to attractions such as the Yorkshire Wildlife Park and the last airworthy Vulcan bomber. There are also plans to build one of a number of Battle of Britain memorials in the borough.

Mr Stapleton is investigating funding streams and hopes to get local businesses involved with the project. They can call him on 01302 342652.

Structures on the site are expected to be made of wood, in keeping with many of the buildings which would have been close the battlesfields at the time.

The Western front in World War was fought in a system of trenches which streched all the way from the coast at the English Channel to Switzerland.

Doncaster’s links with the war include a number of VC winners, Thomas Bryan, John Harper and George Wyatt, and one of Britain’s main Royal Flying Corps pilot training centres during the war, which was near Doncaster Racecourse.

From: http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/world-war-one-museum-and-trench-plan-for-doncaster-1-4525386

News - Sheffield museums will lose visitors after cuts

VISITOR numbers to Sheffield’s three flagship museums will inevitably drop following huge funding cuts, the new boss admitted today.


Footfall at Millennium Gallery, Weston Park Museum and the Graves Gallery will all go down over the next three years, Kim Streets said.

It follows the Arts Council’s decision to refuse a £4.2 million grant and instead pour cash into facilities in Leeds and York.

Forty staff redundancies are currently being made while there will be a significant reduction in touring exhibitions such as the current Andy Warhol show at the Graves Gallery.

But Ms Streets, who was appointed chief executive of Museums Sheffield on April 16, launched the fightback, saying the service would make itself more efficient, pursue other funding streams and look to local artists, like Kid Acne, to exhibit more often.

And in an exclusive interview with The Star, she revealed long-term she was looking into a huge modernisation scheme for the Graves Gallery - including a top floor restaurant.

Ms Streets, aged 44, of Pitsmoor, said: “Of course you can’t take that kind of funding hit and it not have some impact but our challenge is to use this as an opportunity to make the ways we work more efficient and use what we have to its maximum potential.”

The cut in staff numbers will hit visitor numbers because it will mean fewer one-off events for families and schools.

Reduced touring exhibitions, meanwhile, will hit one of the service’s biggest selling points.

“We will do everything we can to bring exciting work here and give Sheffield the very best museums possible,” said Ms Street, who has worked at Museums Sheffield since 1991 and was director of learning before taking over her current post.

“But that will mean rediscovering our own collections and putting them at the heart of what we do.

“Next year, for example, is the centenary of the invention of stainless steel and that is something we will celebrate using our own collection, while 2014 will be the centenary of World War One. Again, that is a story we can tell.”

She added that new funding streams were already being investigated, including a bid for the Art Council’s Renaissance Strategic Support Fund.

In her first week she said she had also set the ball rolling for top-level discussions about overhauling the Graves Gallery.

From: http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/sheffield-museums-will-lose-visitors-after-cuts-1-4501094

Article - First Women of Steel (Sheffield)

well done for supporting the campaign for a statue to the Women of Steel, who made an often forgotten contribution to the war effort between 1939 and 1945. However, campaigners should not forget the hundreds of women steelworkers who worked during World War One in conditions that were certainly far worse.

My grandmother, Phyllis White from Rawmarsh, was one of them.

As a teenager between 1916 and 1918, she travelled to Templeborough day after day to make shell casings. The work was hard and the air often filled with sulphurous fumes that affected the women’s lungs and coloured their skin yellow. They were sometimes known as ‘the canary girls’.

She rarely talked about those days but I suspect the emphysema that finally killed her was a legacy of that time.

If Sheffield erects a statue which exclusively recognises the women steelworkers of World War Two, it will, in my view, be an everlasting insult to the memory of the female workers of World War One.

Just because that generation is long gone doesn’t mean this city should overlook their vital contribution to the Allies’ victory in 1918.

In 2010, I corresponded with Andrew Skelton, the city’s Public Art Officer, on this matter. In reply, he said: “You are right to point out that women made a significant contribution to manufacture in Sheffield in both World Wars and you are justifiably proud of your grandmother’s contribution. As we envisage it the statue will commemorate both generations and the wider contribution of women to the war effort during both wars.”

And yet as the erection of the Women of Steel statue draws closer, it seems we remain in danger of cruelly ignoring the women steelworkers of World War One.

Neil Theasby, S11