Paint

A conversation I was having with a colleague at work about repainting one of our exhibit rooms was overhead by another colleague which led to her father and eventually to the head office of Benjamin Moore Canada. The end result of “one thing leading to another” was some very expert advice on the most durable but also low VOC paints that would be most practical for our needs AND a donation of eight gallons of the said paint via one of their local retailers (Maples Paints on St Clair West.) Like most museums with limited operating budgets, donation of items in kind – like paint – can mean a big difference to what we can accomplish!

Mannequins

Pretty much every historical museum uses mannequins to display costumes – historical clothing or in our case uniforms. But like many museum supplies, mannequins can be expensive – up to hundreds of dollars. The Queen’s Own Rifles Museum is no exception and although we have a large number of uniforms on display, we still have a closet full that aren’t!

Since my day job office is located at Queen and Bay (on top of the Queen Street Hudson Bay store), I arranged to have coffee about a month ago with Richard Montgomery, Chief Adventurer (a.k.a. Vice President and General Manager) of the Queen Street store. After reminiscing about my first job as a teenager at the Robert Simpson’s Queen Street Store (before it was bought by the Bay) and finding out that Robert had a degree in history, we talked mannequins. Richard said he’d be happy to help us out if he could and promised to check what they might be available. Almost four weeks later, staff delivered 2 full mannequins and 2 “busts” on stands to my office on the 18th floor!

In the picture above, your’s truly is the one with the head, and a couple of the others have been clothed with fig leafs for modesty’s sake. We’ve also undertaken a mannequin naming contest since they may be there a while until I can arrange transportation to their new home at Casa Loma.

Thank you

Thank you to both Benjamin Moore Paints Canada and The Hudson Bay Company for their generous gift in kind donations!

• Timeline: 1856-1899 (much of this has already been done but still needs a re-check)
• Timeline: 1900-1924
• Timeline: 1925-1949
• Timeline: 1950-1974 (only a small portion of this period is covered by Barnard’s book)
• Timeline: Uniforms
• Timeline: Weapons

Note that we have two “specialty” timelines for uniforms and weapons which we’re also trying to populate.

Information can be submitted in the body of an email or in a WORD attachment and each date/event (following the format already being used including a [2] at the end of each entry as the reference to this source). Research should be emailed to museum@qormuseum.org directly.

If you’re interested in assisting with this project, you can indicate below which time period you would like to research (it can be a portion of the periods shown above) and we’ll confirm with you before you start just some we don’t end up with any overlap. Questions can also be posted in the comments below!

Thanks in advance!

You’d assist in preparing “this day in history” posts, following social media mentions of the QOR or our museum, re-posting items of interest from similar organizations, responding to comments/questions from followers and even perhaps creating some blog posts.

You’d work with the Curator within the guidelines we are developing and would work from your own computer and/or smartphone or other device. Besides social media cred, you need have an interest in the history of the Queen’s Own Rifles (duh) and ideally a connection to the regiment (but the latter isn’t a deal breaker!)

If you think you might be interested in taking on this volunteer position, please send an email to museum@qormuseum.org (please don’t apply via the “comments” section below although we’re happy to respond to questions about the position that way.) You should include a description of your experience in relation to what we’re looking for above and links to your FB, Twitter accounts and other accounts as a kind of portfolio for us to check out!

We look forward to hearing from you soon!

2nd Battle of Ypres and the 3rd Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF)
When the 3rd Battalion was raised for the Canadian Expeditionary Force in September 1914, it consisted mostly of soldiers from the Queen’s Own Rifles including all three of its wartime Commanding Officers, however it also had elements from the 10th Royal Grenadiers and the Governor General’s Bodyguard. Today the 3rd Battalion, CEF is perpetuated by the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada and the Royal Regiment of Canada (as the successor to the 10th Royal Grenadiers.)

After some training at Valcartier the 3rd Bn embarked for England On October 3rd as part of the 1st Brigade where they would spend four more months equipping, training and reorganizing. They arrived in France in mid February 1915 and were assigned to their first front line trench duties on March 5th. The first combat casualties occurred the next day with two men reported killed by shrapnel from shelling. But it was not until the April that they would see their first and perhaps most significant battle.

“On April 22nd the 2nd and 3rd Brigades were holding the line, the 2nd on the right, the 3rd on the left with the 1st Brigade in reserve about Vlamertinghe. In the afternoon the enemy launched the first gas attack of the war against the French and to a lesser extent against the Canadian left. The attack entirely broke the French, exposing the Canadian left flank which bent but held. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions, the latter commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Rennie, were rushed up in support, arriving at midnight, and were attached to the Third Brigade at Shell-trap Farm. The former at once went into the line on the exposed left flank. During the following morning “C” and “D” Companies of the 3rd Battalion were placed under command of Major Kirkpatrick and moved forward to fill in a gap on the right of the 2nd Battalion between the famous Kitchener’s Wood and the village of St. Julien. Throughout the day and night this flank held in spite of desperate German attacks, but the following day it was pushed back, “C” and “D” Companies being completely wiped out in a vain attempt to stem the tide. All this was done under heavy artillery fire and without artillery support, for the line had not been expected to hold and most artillery had been withdrawn. Meanwhile, many British battalions were being rushed up and about April 27th, the line was stabilized and the Division relieved, the 3rd Battalion being the last to be withdrawn. After several days in support, the division left the Salient and moved south.. This was the battalion’s first battle. It is known as the Second Battle of Ypres and the Canadian part of it as St. Julien sometimes Langemarck. It cost the battalion 19 officers and 460 men in casualties.”

From a “A Brief History of the 3rd Canadian Battalion Toronto Regiment”

Included in that total and what hurt the 3rd Battalion the most was the fact that 287 men taken as prisoners of war by the Germans – including Kirkpatrick – the second most of any Canadian unit during the war. Those that were not considered casualties, from the Commander on down, were all suffering from fatigue and irritable nerves.

The war dairies written during this battle are worth a read and you can find them on our website here. Note the 10 am April 24 entry which records instructions to Major Kilpatrick that “You must hang on to your position” and which would lead to his nickname of “Hang On Kirkpatrick”.

Here are two additional accounts of the battle from participants:

Corporal J.W. “Jack” Finnemore #9785 – 3rd Battalion
April 22, 1915 – 2nd Battle of Ypres
“I was wounded on the last jump over between leaving an old trench and building a new one. My brother F.A. Finnimore (Staff Sargeant Frank Finnimore #9781) was wounded there just before I was.I started to take his putee off when Captain Strait (Major John Everett Streight, Prisoner of War)said to me “.Come on Finnimore. Look after your section. Never mind, you’ll have to leave him (my brother).” A newspaper back home reported that we kissed each other goodbye on the front, but I only did his leg up.That was all!.” Jack was captured by the Germans and became a Prisoner of War. Frank survived his wounds.

Private Frank V. Ashbourne #9170 – 3rd Battalion
April 24, 1915 – 2nd Battle of Ypres
“We went into the line with a thousand and only two hundred of us came out of it. Sir John French said that it was our Battalion that stopped the advance of the Germans. “C” and “D” Companies suffered the most and were almost wiped out. I was with my brother Bert (Private Bertram Ashbourne #9171), shortly before we were separated by the gas attack at St. Julien, on April 24-25, 1915. My brother was wounded at Langemarck and taken prisoner of war. During the gas attack at St. Julien we lost the first line of trenches and had to move back to the supports. At the back of those trenches we lay down flat and covered our mouths with wet clothes, waiting for the Germans to come up. They came up slowly thinking we were all dead from their gas, but not so. It drifted slowly over us and showed the Germans about seventy-five yards away. We were suddenly ordered to rapid fire and I don’t think that about more than a dozen Germans got away alive. We advanced again and regained our front trenches with minimum losses”.

Formation
As many of you may already know, the QOR itself was formed by General Militia Order on April 26, 1860 under the name Second Battalion Volunteer Rifles of Canada. It consisted of several formerly independent rifles companies that had been raised in 1955 in the County of York and the surrounding communities. Lieutenant Colonel William Smith Durie of the Barrie Company appointed Commanding Officer.

The past 113 years, Queen’s Own Riflemen have seen service in the Battle of Ridgeway (Fenian Raids), the Red River Rebellion, the North West Field Force, the South African War, the First World War, the Second World War, peacekeeping in Korea and Cyprus, NATO service in Germany, various United Nations postings, Bosnia and most recently Afghanistan where 61 soldiers of the regiment saw active service.

This week is National Volunteer Week in Canada so we want to take this opportunity to thank and recognize our 15 volunteers who have provided 256 hours of volunteer service to the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada’s Regimental Museum in the past 6 months:

• Cpl Jonathan Chan
• Mathew Cutler
• Clay Downes
• Nancy Downes
• Hayden
• Phil Escayola
• Capt (Ret) Larry Hicks
• Cpl Graham Humphrey
• Cpl Katherine Jessome
• Cpl Tommy Jun
• Katherine Kelly
• CWO (Ret) Shaun Kelly
• Lydia Radewych
• Anne Root
• Rfn Alex Sonatin

Volunteers are critical to the successful operation of our museum and we greatly appreciate the time, the skills, the knowledge and the effort of each and every one!

John Stephens
Curator

Our lack of full time staff to respond to requests for information has led us to consider the benefits of digitizing certain records and making them available online. To this end, we contacted Anne Dondertman of the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library, University of Toronto, who is graciously allowing us use of the library’s digital book scanner designed for use with bound volumes. This is a book2net Kiosk for those enquiring minds.

After scanning, we import the individual jpeg images from a book into a single Adobe Acrobat pdf document. We then add books marks, run optical character recognition to create a searchable document (if possible), add metadata and reduce the size of the pdf for uploading to our website.

I can now scan about 400 pages per hour if I resist the urge to read while I’m scanning. As we only have access to the library a couple of hours each week, it may take us some time to process our materials. In the meantime we’re prioritizing so that we`ll be scanning the most useful/interesting first – a rather subjective process!

To date we`ve digitized and uploaded to our new ARCHIVES page:

• one Nominal Roll (1866-1882)
• three volumes of Regimental Orders (1868-1874, 1886-1892 & 1892-1897)
• the regimental Book of Remembrance, 1866-1918,
• three sets of Regimental Standing Orders  (1880, 1894, 1925)

We’ve also linked to some previously scanned documents:

• the 3^rd Battalion Nominal Roll 1915
• two diaries of soldiers who were in the North West Field Force
  • Lieutenant R. S. Cassels
  • Rifleman J. A. Forin

We’ll continue digitizing and uploading as documents are completed. We hope you’ll find this material both interesting and helpful!

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 15,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 3 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

New photos storage shelving installed December 2012.

December isn’t over yet but we want to provide both an update and to ask for you support before we all get wrapped up in the holiday hustle and bustle.

Cleaning and Cataloging Photos

Two volunteers – former Regular Force Rifleman Clay Downes and his wife Nancy of Georgetown, Ontario – have been busy over the last several weeks, cleaning and cataloging framed photographs in the museums collection. Cleaning off several layers of dust is pretty self explanatory but cataloging requires recording detailed information about each photo including a description of the photos content, and as much about the people included, location, date, occasion, photographer or studio, dimensions, framing, etc. that we can determine. All of this information is being entered into our new collections management software and will help us with taking future inventories, sourcing photos for future exhibitions, and providing resources for research projects. Between them they have provided 61 hours of volunteer service and deserve a large thanks!

Today Curator Major John Stephens, Assistant Curator CWO Shaun Kelly and Clay, removed some older shelving that had been built with whatever materials had been at hand and installed new metal shelving (see photos at right). These new shelves will provide much better storage for all our photos, now well organized by their object number. The team was very pleased with the results and once the cataloged photos were moved into the new shelving, Nancy had room to continue the very large project!

RENEWING OUR PAST: Supporting the Regimental Museum

The Regimental Museum is undertaking our RENEWING OUR PAST Campaign which consists of two parts:

Preserving Our Past includes efforts to protect and preserve our artifacts to ensure they will continue to be with us for a long time. Installing new storage, purchasing necessary but expensive archival materials, and creating a detailed collections database are all unglamorous but important parts of this phase.

Connecting with the Present includes re-imagining our exhibits, reaching out with social media, creating a volunteer program and providing museum activities and resources. We’ll shortly be creating a new “Soldiers of the Queen’s Own” exhibit in the Tower room which will start with a new coat of paint!

Elements are underway in both phases and with that comes numerous additional costs beyond our usual operating expenses. The Regimental Museum is governed, operated and supported financially by the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Trust Fund. You can help support the Museum and its RENEWING OUR PAST campaign by donating to the Trust through the CanadaHelps.org website. Under Fund/Designation select “Museum Fund” to ensure that your donation can be properly directed to our campaign. Donations received before the end of December, will be issued a 2012 charitable income tax receipt.

Thank you for your support and we wish you all a very happy holiday!