Newly refurbished museum at Tower of London highlights regiment's 325 year history
Private W Reginauld may not have been the Royal Fusiliers' most distinguished soldier, but the boot he wore will have pride of place at the newly refurbished regimental museum in the Tower of London.
It was not the sort of footwear anyone would want to wear ? a heavy iron contraption stretching from toe to knee that an exasperated colonel ordered Reginauld to put on in 1808 following years of malingering with a bad leg.
The painted inscription tells it all: "Found of great use after imposing on the regiment for three years and six months, was cured in 12 days ..." To complete the cure, Reginauld was sentenced to 500 lashes to dissuade him from swinging the lead again.
The Royal Fusiliers, drawing recruits from London, has had plenty of more gallant soldiers than Reginauld, among them 20 winners of the Victoria Cross, with 12 of those medals on display in the museum in an interactive display case whose touchscreen will describe how each came to be won.
The regiment, first raised at the Tower in 1685 and now amalgamated with three regional fusilier regiments to form the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, has missed few significant battles in the last 320 years.
"We have only been absent from Waterloo and D-day," said Colin Bowes-Crick, the museum's curator, whose connection with the regiment stretches back nearly 50 years. "We missed Waterloo by a day and for D-day were still fighting in Italy."
There is also a Russian musket ball extracted from the thigh of a fusilier wounded at the battle of Inkerman in 1854 ? together with the soldier's letter home to his family describing the incident, written the same day ? and a white tablecloth waved by German troops surrendering at the end of the prolonged and bloody battle at the Italian monastery of Monte Casino in the second world war.
A mannequin in a display case depicts the surprisingly diminutive figure of George V ? much smaller than Michael Gambon in The King's Speech ? wearing his uniform as colonel of the regiment, complete with bearskin.
And, some things never change, there is also a letter from a regimental colonel to William Howard Russell, the first war correspondent, complaining about his coverage of the Crimean war.
There is also the Napoleonic imperial eagle on its pike, captured from the French in 1809, in a battle at Martinique. "That really makes my temples tingle," said Bowes-Crick. "It's the thought that Napoleon himself would have touched the eagle in presenting it to his troops."
Entry to the museum, reopening to the public next week after the �850,000 refit, will be included in the price of admission to the Tower.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/28/fusiliers-tower-museum-revamp
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