Tag: Local History
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Finsbury Rifles : Away from the Western Front. 24th September 1916 to 19th October
Sidi Bishr Sidi Bishr was an extensive Allied army base to the north east of Alexandria. It housed an open-air rest and recuperation camp for other ranks. Men were sent there from the different battalions guarding the Suez Canal during 1916 and appreciated the change of scene and better…
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Finsbury Rifles : Away from the Western Front. 25th August 2016 to 23rd September 1916.
Loading Camels The 1/11 Finsbury Rifles were split at this point. While half the battalion stayed at Halfway House for specialist training and the never-ending maintenance and repair of the defence system, the remaining two companies were sent to the army base at Kubri. This was also the railhead for…
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The Finsbury Rifles: From Islington to Egypt, Palestine and Syria. Private View and Storytelling Celebration!
Islington Museum is one of a number of partners around the country contributing to Away from the Western Front, a two year project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. This project looks to explore the heritage of the men and women from Britain and its former Empire who served in the campaigns…
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Up Against It
‘1967: Up Against It’ explores the impact of the Sexual Offences Act (1967) passed on 27 July that year, and the 50th anniversary of the deaths of the borough’s most (in)famous gay couple, Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, on 9 August. Through the stories of well-known and some not so…
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Finsbury Rifles: Away from the Western Front. 3rd August to 24th August 1916.
Specialist training Training was carried out intensively whenever a unit was away from the front line. It formed an important part of a soldier’s life, especially given the rapid development of new tactics and technologies as well as the large turnover of men in any given unit. On top of…
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Finsbury Rifles: Away from the Western Front. 17th July to 2nd August 1916.
Work on defences The defence posts by the Suez Canal included a network of communication trenches. Maintaining these trenches was a never ending task involving an immense amount of hard physical labour by the men. The trenches were lined with sandbags and boards but these gradually rotted away because of…
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Beastly Islington: Islington Museum at Moreland Chidren’s Centre
Beastly Islington: Musical Monday at Moreland Children’s Centre Monday 31st July. Music sessions at 10am and 11am, craft drop in 10am – 12pm. Come along to Moreland Children’s Centre for our special family music event. Join musician Pal Rubinstein for a musical Monday. Dance to the melodies, learn new songs…
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Dadabhai Naoroji Photo Album and Presentation Box, 1892
The constituency of Central Finsbury elected Britain’s first Asian MP in 1892. This album and its presentation box were gifted by the people of Bombay (now Mumbai) to commemorate Dadhabai Naoroji’s election. He served as MP for Central Finsbury until his defeat in 1895. Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) was born near…
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Finsbury Rifles: Away from the Western Front. 9th July to 15th July 1916.
Here we see a reference to Captain AL Lewthwaite, a member of the Rifles, who’s spectacular photography collections survives as part of the Imperial War Museum’s archive, providing a personal record of day to day life away from the Western Front. We link to the archive throughout this blog, but…
Friends of Islington Museum 