Liverpool Scottish museum to auction Capt. Noel Chavasse VC memorabilia

[KizmeRD]

You don’t know what you got ‘till it’s gone…

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg3q957nq2o
 

M.

Edited Thursday at 10:55 by KizmeRD

[GreyC]

Why does a museum do that?

Is it private or is it run by local or national owners?

Thanks!

GreyC

[BillyH]

The title makes it sound as though Chavasse's V.C.'s are being auctioned, but this is surely not the case.

BillyH.

[Allan1892]

I think BillyH is correct. Reading 'the blurb' in the BBC link -- Much of the collection is held by the Museum of Liverpool but the remaining memorabilia, including photos of the hero captain, is being auctioned. This suggests to me that they are not selling his medals.

[AOK4]

It's indeed a misleading article as it focuses on Noel Chavasse and his VC, while only one photo is being mentioned as "for sale". By the looks of the picture, it seems to be mainly more modern "military junk" that is for sale. I think the BBC journalist went for clickbait and not for an honest description of what is really for sale. No one from the association that is selling the stuff has been interviewed to explain the why and what either...

In my humble opinion: a piece of bad journalism, typical for today's journalistic attitude.

[Allan1892]

1 hour ago, AOK4 said:

In my humble opinion: a piece of bad journalism, typical for today's journalistic attitude.

Agreed!

[CorporalPunishment]

His medals are in the Lord Ashcroft Collection so they are safe.        Pete.

[GreyC]

Thanks guys. I agree with Jan. Bad journalism. Good to know the medals are safe.

GreyC

Edited Thursday at 16:24 by GreyC

[KizmeRD]

They are surely the most valuable set of British medals from the entire Great War.

Sorry I mis-read the initial article, BBC journalism standards are slipping.

M.

[Ian Riley]

On 26/09/2024 at 11:22, GreyC said:

Why does a museum do that?

Is it private or is it run by local or national owners?

Thanks!

GreyC

It doesn't.  I will post what I have placed on the Liverpool Scottish Regimental Association Facebook page separately below. The BBC arrived with their own story!

Ian Riley

 

 

Edited 7 hours ago by Ian Riley
Additional Information

[Ian Riley]

I am the Honorary Secretary of the Liverpool Scottish Museum Trust. We receive no public funding (even when we maintained a display) though we are associated with the Army Museums Ogilby Trust and were a fully registered museum (no mean feat for a small group of volunteers. In 2008 when the military building in which we were based was closed (the second closure on us in nine years but this time not as a result of a military reorganisation)  we decided that our financial resources and the ageing profile of our few volunteers meant that we could not safely sustain another relocation of the display of artefacts. At that stage, our collection of artefacts went into store (courtesy of the local Reserve Forces and Cadets Association) and our very extensive archive was relocated in Liverpool city centre courtesy of regimental friends and subsequently a long-established city institution. Again, we still maintain, at no small expense,  a very extensive archive in Liverpool city centre. Since that time we have worked to transfer the core collection (all our  Liverpool Scottish medals and key items of the collection)  to a ring-fenced collection at the Museum of Liverpool (MoL,  part of National Museums Liverpool, NML)  hence giving our material the protection of a national collection.   They hold the King's Regiment Collection on loan - that is the Liverpool Regiment collection. The Liverpool Scottish was part of the King's from 1908 until 1937 when it transferred to the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders (although it had been affiliated to the QOCH since 1916 by Army Order 250 (from memory) though the descendant Territorial sub-unit, V (The Liverpool Scottish) Company,  returned to the King's fold in 1992. There is however a Liverpool Scottish display at the Museum of the Highlanders at Fort George near Inverness using material provided by us.  
I am pretty happy that the Liverpool Scottish Museum Trustees (that includes me)  have made every effort to transfer key items to the the Museum of Liverpool. To be honest,  it has cost us personally a great deal of time, petrol and incidental expense (and I have a half-finished PhD Thesis on the 55th (West Lancashire) Division that I suspect will never see the light of day  ) I assume that people will be aware that modern museum best practice is not to accept duplicate items and so there is a limit to the number of pairs of "puttees, short" or 'anklets, web, P1937'  that a museum will accept and the same sadly applies to broadswords, bayonets, sporrans, dirks, service dress tunics, mess kit jackets etc  where duplicates have not been acceptable to MoL unless they have a particular significance. They can't remain in store to wait for the existing (and ageing) Trustees of a unit that no longer exists to turn to dust.  I have to admit that I have looked at a very few items in the auction catalogue and wondered whether we should have pushed harder for acceptance  but the route of transfer has been tortuous and extended and retrospect is a fine thing. 

As for the piece on the BBC's North West Tonight ... the BBC  select the footage and edit it to three minutes  - so I was not able to get over the key messages that I will have stated to camera over an hour of personal filming and the total two and a half hours that they spent at the saleroom. Mind you,  the key words were "Can we do that again, Ian, only this time rather shorter?" ... which will be understood by those who know me personally . As pointed out above on the GWF by more than a few understanding and perceptive souls (thank you!), the BBC arrived with their own story in mind, partially I admit the result of a press release that I had about half an hour to read and edit (but clearly not enough). I have spent over 25 years trying to persuade outsiders that the Great War  story of the Liverpool Scottish is not the story of one outstandingly heroic man who associated himself very closely with his adopted battalion  but of nearly 9000 other men also (and rather more over the course of 114 years). My points (that pretty well end up on the cutting room floor) are : 

• that we have spent 15 years transferring the core items of the Liverpool Scottish collection to the Museum of Liverpool (selection of items in storage, transfer to Liverpool, meetings to discuss provenance and context in the transfer between rebuilds of the museum and repopulation of the new museum, the mounting of major exhibitions by curators, personal serious illness and COVID) where it is protected as a National Collection (not part of the King's Regiment Collection), It was in fact mentioned (as someone has picked up above - thank you!) but very much in passing and without explanation of what that statement implied
• that no items from us were directly associated with Noel Chavasse other than that he was Medical Officer of the 1/10 KLR (one medal from the collection of another vendor, belonging to a stretcher bearer, is included)
• and that funds raised will go towards endowing the very extensive archive that remains intact .
   

The Chavasse medals are now in the Ashcroft Collection at the IWM having been initially passed by the family to St Peter's College Oxford (Noel Chavasse's father having founded it  after retiring as Bishop of Liverpool and his twin brother, Christopher,  being the first Master) thence on loan to the IWM and thence by sale by the College to Lord Ashcroft (£1.6 m IIRC) but remaining in the IWM. The Ashcroft Collection also acquired Noel's correspondence although our archive does hold one or two items original items that he wrote to third parties (parents/NOK of casualties) that have since passed to us. In the last month, the Reserve Army RAMC sub-unit (in the wake of another Army reorganisation) has handed Noel Chavasse's sword and other items associated with him and his twin sisters to the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool (very much the creation of his father) where they will be displayed once secure arrangements have been made. 

The catalogue is on-line at at a Southport saleroom  and is a timed auction over a week. No medals in that sale are Liverpool Scottish medals from our collection - they were the first items to be transferred to the Museum of Liverpool. There are other vendors. The process of returning 'loaned' medals (and some other items) has taken me four months often using addresses that are over forty years old (and has not been perfect).   

Our next problem is to find a permanent home for the Liverpool Scottish archive so that it survives us  (I hold nearly 60,000 digital  images of our 'hard copy' material stretching back to the Scottish companies of the Lancashire Rifle Volunteers of the mid 19th Century to the service of Liverpool Scots in modern conflicts of the 21st Century. A significant proportion of this represents records held uniquely by us and research over 50 year by our Honorary Curator, Dennis Reeves, and others - Our database contains biographical detail of nearly 9000 WW1 soldiers and a large number of soldiers before and after that time.  I am in the process of answering five queries just at the moment.  We are already considering possible homes although its very size is a problem - successive iterations of cataloguing have been ongoing over the last 12 years - this is a matter of more than a few yards of shelving. As mentioned , this sale will hopefully help the endowment of the archive to allow proper absorption into another collection, academic or otherwise - it is social history as well as wartime experience - the minutes of our Regimental Association document charitable work (and are, incidentally signed off  in the 1930s by the Rev David Railton, as in the Unknown Warrior, as Chairman, a pre-WW1 Liverpool Scot)  

Apologies for boring anyone and perhaps repeating myself - Pauses for breath and thinks about dinner at 22:30

Ian

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Ian Riley

[KizmeRD]

Thank you Ian for setting the record straight.

M.

[Ian Riley]

On 26/09/2024 at 12:04, AOK4 said:

It's indeed a misleading article as it focuses on Noel Chavasse and his VC, while only one photo is being mentioned as "for sale". By the looks of the picture, it seems to be mainly more modern "military junk" that is for sale. I think the BBC journalist went for clickbait and not for an honest description of what is really for sale. No one from the association that is selling the stuff has been interviewed to explain the why and what either...

In my humble opinion: a piece of bad journalism, typical for today's journalistic attitude.

I was representing the Liverpool Scottish Museum Trust which did appear briefly on a caption below my vivid regimental tie in the colours of our Forbes tartan. I did my best but 95% of what I said, including key points to our story, ended up edited out - please see my lengthy post above!

Edited 5 hours ago by Ian Riley