Gallery One - Wrexham Heritage

From 8.11.2019

Wrexham marked Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day 2019 with a new exhibition at Wrexham County Borough Museum & Archives: Forgotten Wars: The Royal Welch Fusiliers Around The World 1850 – 1970.

Over the past five years, the main focus of commemorations has been the First World War, but over the centuries the Royal Welch Fusiliers, who recruited heavily across north Wales and were based in Wrexham, were called on to fight in conflicts around the globe. Soldiers from north Wales served in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe.

Many of these wars have become footnotes in history books, their monuments on our streets and in our churches often overlooked, even forgotten. However, these wars are well-remembered in other countries and this exhibition highlights this global history that is part of Wrexham’s and Wales’s history.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

Campaign medals from the Crimean War, the Boer War and the 1900 International Expedition to Peking
A letter about Florence Nightingale
Traditional weapons from the North-West Frontier province of the Indian Empire
An Other Ranks’ British Army Uniform from the 19th century
A Chinese communist guerrilla cap from the Malaya Emergency.
A sketchbook from the deployment in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The exhibition opened on November 8th 2019 and will run until summer 2021. Admission is free.

From 6/12/2019

The current ‘People and Places’ themed display in the main gallery at Wrexham Museum highlights the history of Brymbo. The display is based on the industrial, social and art history collections cared for by the museum, including:

An oil painting of John Wilkinson, original founder of Brymbo Ironworks
An illuminated address and photograph album presented to Mr J H Darby, managing director of Brymbo Steel Works, in April 1908 by the management and workforce
An original Brymbo Fire Brigade fireman’s helmet
A rare surviving shell made by the Royal Ordnance from Brymbo steel
Tools and equipment used by Walter Salisbury and his fellow foundry men at the steelworks and
Silverware from Bethel Wesleyan Chapel, Brymbo.

The display also provides an opportunity to showcase the art works and sculpture of Brymbo Steel Works’ former employee, Ben Boenisch. Mr Boenisch, a stalwart of the Wrexham & District Arts Association in the 1970s and 1980s, worked as the catering manager at Brymbo. The occasional dangers of the Electric Melting Shop and the rolling mill were nothing compared to Mr Boenisch’s wartime career: fighting the Wehrmacht following the German and Soviet invasion of his homeland, Poland, in 1939; escaping across war-torn Europe initially to France and then to Britain; before fighting with the Royal Artillery in Burma.

The ‘People and Places’ display case is located in the centre of the main gallery at Wrexham Museum.