New museum boss in Shrewsbury

The museum has welcomed Richard Gough as its new Director after Curator Christine Bernáth left to join The Gurkha Museum in July.

The appointment in February is a move by the museum to secure its future and to drive its strategic plans forward. These include re-launching the Museum, housed in Shrewsbury Castle, as ‘The Soldiers of Shropshire Museum’ later in 2019.

Richard was the manager of volunteering and visitor engagement at Ironbridge Gorge Museum until recently. He said: “My goal is to encourage lots more people to visit and enjoy the collections in the museum – and to do so by revealing the humbling, real-people stories wrapped up in these remarkable objects.”

Along with updating the audio-visual presentations at the museum, Richard plans to introduce interactive displays to add layers of information to key objects in the collection. Visitors will soon be able to scan codes next to objects from their mobile phones or tablets and then watch related films, read additional stories, or explore links to other objects in the Museum. “Crucially, it puts the visitor experience back into the hands of the visitor,” he added.

Ahead of the re-launch in September, the whole team is working hard to generate greater public exposure of the museum, as well as building an improved education programme and website re- design.

“These are exciting times,” said Richard. “Being able to tell the incredible stories of our soldiers means we can run really inspiring schools’ programmes as well as bringing the museum to life for all our other visitors. And the re-naming in September will allow us to represent a wider range of Servicemen and Women from across Shropshire, recognising their contribution and commitment to the British Armed Forces, whether they served in the Shropshire Regiments or not. I’d like to think they will consider us ‘their’ museum.”

Military museums have endured some tough times of late, with the loss of MOD funding in 2017 and with more complex visitor tastes to cater for – but, according to Richard, the Shropshire Regimental Museum is 'extremely well placed' to move forwards as one of the most comprehensive and complete Regimental Collections in the UK. “Thanks to the foundations laid by Christine and her predecessor Peter Duckers over the last decade, and with the help of lots more visitors, I can see a bright future ahead,” he said.

“Whether you’ve never been or are a regular visitor, we’d love for you to visit – you’ll be made very welcome. It’s so much more than just guns and swords.”