New display in Iron Bridge Tollhouse marks Victory in Europe Day
The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust has installed a new display at the Iron Bridge Tollhouse to mark the 80th anniversary celebrations of Victory in Europe Day on Thursday, 8 May 2025.
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The display features a selection of items relating to people and places in the local area as well as other artefacts from the Second World War.
Kate Cadman, Collections Curator at the Trust, has lent a number of items relating to her father, a local man, Private Maurice James Cadman. Private Cadman was in active service from June 1944 in France and Germany, but was stationed in Germany during 1945 and for VE Day. In a letter home to his sister, Ms Cadman’s aunt, Mary Cadman, he wrote: “I hope you didn’t get drunk on VE Night. I didn’t as I never got a chance, we never even got half a pint; but of course we have nothing to do with it, we are the blokes whats been doing the fighting, we only work here…”
The display also includes toy soldiers, produced by Greenwood & Ball in Horsehay, and similar to models used by senior figures rehearsing military action during the war. Munitions were produced by the Coalbrookdale Company during both World Wars, and a photograph in the display, taken during World War One, shows just some of the local ‘Bomb Girls’, the nickname given to munitions workers.
Kate Cadman said: “The Trust, a heritage conservation and education charity, tells stories of the Gorge’s industrial past in its museums, but also of the lives of more recent generations. I am delighted to share the stories of my family with visitors to the Iron Bridge Tollhouse to give a flavour of what this period was like for local people.”
The display is free and available to see from now until the summer.
