Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum's collection

A selection of campaign medals and gallantry awards from the Museum's extensive collection are on display with additional material regarding the recipient, specific action or campaign. This includes a Victoria Cross from the Second World War and an Army Gold Medal from the Peninsular War. Additional medals, archives or items in the collection not on display, can be viewed by appointment.

The small but fine archive is largely from the 19th and 20th centuries, but there are items dating back to the formation of the Regiment in 1685. It is a unit archive, we don't hold personal army service records of individuals, but it has been extensively indexed by name and is regularly used for family history enquiries as well as broader historical research.

In addition, a large number of the handwritten items have been transcribed for ease of access to the information they contain. The Museum collection is particularly rich in material from the First World War; letters and diaries illuminate the experiences and human cost of the four years of world conflict.

The Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum collection is owned and overseen by Trustees and is managed by Norfolk Museums Service.

The Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum displays are divided into two main sections: the 20th century; covering two World Wars plus the National Service years, including the Korean War and the Cyprus EOKA campaign. Regular, volunteer and conscripted soldiers in the Norfolk Regiment served in the Western Front, Italy, Mesopotamia, Gallipoli, and the Middle East, 1914-18. Between 1939 and 1945 they were in Europe, the Far East, India and Burma. On the entry of Japan into the War, three Royal Norfolk territorial battalions, part of the 18th Infantry Division, along with men from Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Essex Regiments, were sent to Singapore. They became Far East Prisoners of War, many working on the infamous Burma railway. The Museum has a collection of FEPOW material, including nominal rolls, clothing, FEPOW made and adapted items and photographs.

From the West Indies to America, and Japan to India, the movement and stations of the Regiment reflected British imperial concerns throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection includes material that reflects this activity. There is a large photographic collection and a range of objects bought, collected as souvenirs, and even looted whilst on active service.