Resonance 11/10/14

I’m currently working my way around a consortium of Staffordshire museums, ‘sounding out’ their Great War collections, as part of my current project ‘Resonance’, which will culminate in a touring exhibition of artworks inspired by objects from these collections. This week’s visit was to Cannock Chase, to visit the museum as well as the Commonwealth and German military cemeteries, both of these very moving, perhaps the communal graves of the four airship crews shot down over Britain were the most haunting of all.

There was much to see at the museum, particularly photographs and artefacts representing the military training camps, the prisoner-of-war camp and the military hospital on Cannock Chase, but my ‘object of the week’ from this visit has to be this WW1 billy-can, a kind of prototype camping stove, which folds away beautifully into its leather case. A splendid example of compact, practical design, the billy-can was used by an Australian soldier, Mr. S. Smith, during the Great War, to provide that essential and comforting cup of tea for the British and Commonwealth soldier.

Stephen Dixon