Tank talk at Gloucester city museum

A one-off event to talk about the unique history of a Gloucester tank will be held at the city museum

Gloucester tank ‘Daphne’ was rediscovered in September this year at a Lincolnshire museum where it had lived for more than 30 years.

‘The surprising history of Gloucester’s Great War tank’ talks by expert Gwyn Evans will be held at Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery, Brunswick Road, Gloucester, GL1 1HP on Saturday 22nd November from 11am.

Presentation tanks like Daphne were given to the towns and cities across Britain which helped raise funds for the war effort.

For more than three decades, the World War One (WWI) Mark IV female tank took pride of place at the Museum of Lincolnshire Life, loaned by Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset, to honour Lincoln’s role in the invention of the machine.

The discovery of a serial number, 2743, allowed historians to trace its real past.

After the war, Daphne was presented to the city of Gloucester and stood in Gloucester Park from 1919 until the 1940’s. She was also on display at Hucclecote Airfield until the end of WWII and later arrived at the Royal Armoured Corps Centre at Bovington Camp, Dorset, where she became one of the first exhibits of the Tank Museum.

Cllr Paul James, Leader of Gloucester City Council and cabinet member for regeneration and culture said, “We would encourage anyone with a love for local history to come along to this fascinating talk about the exciting discovery of a historic Gloucester tank. You might even have links to the tank itself or maybe remember its time in the city.”

Tickets are £6.00 per person (£5 concessions – over 60s) and are available online atwww.gloucester.gov.uk/museums or by telephoning 01452 396131.

• The Mark IV tank was the most numerous of the different types of tank in use by the British Army in the First World War, with 1,220 built.  It entered service in 1917.
• Daphne’ is a female, meaning that it carried machine guns only.  Male tanks were armed with cannon.
• Only seven Mark IVs are known to survive.  There are three in the UK, at Lincoln, Ashford and at the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.  There is one in Brussels, one in Canberra and one in the USA.  The last is the veteran of the Battle of Cambrai, “Deborah”, at Flesquieres, France.