New souvenir guide book front cover

At last, visitors to the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment Lancashire Infantry Museum* at Fulwood Barracks, Preston can take home a fully illustrated souvenir of some of the treasures that they have seen, thanks to Heritage Lottery funding.   

‘We wanted our guests to be able to have a souvenir of our treasures in an easily handlable form to complement the huge amount of detail that is in our cabinets, available on screen in the museum and on the website’ said Publicity Officer, Roger Goodwin.

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So Jane Davies the Curator, Dominic Butler, her deputy, and the Trustees approved a selection of the treasures to be featured, from the East Lancashire, South Lancashire and Loyal North Lancashire Regiments through to their eventual successor – the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment. Collections continue onwards to the present Duke of Lancashire’s Regiment.

There’s a time line sequence from 1689 onwards and a celebration of the 17 Victoria Cross winners. A sequence of Heroes includes Major General Charles Willis who had to borrow£300 to feed and pay his men in 1713; Private John Readitt, who joined the South Lancashires at age 17 from being Manchester United FC’s boot boy and who won the VC two years later in Mesopotamia; and closes with ‘today’s heroes – the highly trained members of the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment – ready as ever to live up to their famous motto ‘difficulties be damned.’

A specially-commissioned composition, hanging in the museum, shows 17 of the Regiment’s 19 Victoria Cross winners

Photographs include the Museum’s greatest treasure – the Salamanca Eagle captured in 1812, one of only five ever taken by the British from Napoleon’s legions; the WW1 German machine gun seized by VC winner Private William Radcliffe from Liverpool –“The Dockers’ VC” – and turned on the enemy with deadly effect; and part of the Berlin Wall. The unique record of having fought on every inhabited continent is complete with detail of the ‘battle’ of Eureka Stockade in the Australian goldfields in 1854.

The Museum is open 10.00 – 16.00 Tuesday to Thursday and Saturday. Free admission and free parking. Adult visitors will be asked to produce personal identification such as a photo ID driving licence

Have you visited the Lancashire Infantry Museum yet? Let us know in the comments below.