The Donnington Historic Weapons Collection is a collection of weapons accumulated by MoD Donnington in

Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...

, England, over a long period of time. It is now housed at the

Combined Military Services Museum The Combined Military Services Museum in Maldon, Essex, was opened on 5 July 2004. Richard Wooldridge set it up to house a personal collection he had created over many years. A charity was established in 1996 to facilitate the funding of a museu ...

Maldon Maldon (, locally ) is a town and civil parish on the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, England. It is the seat of the Maldon District and starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation. It is known for Maldon Sea Salt which is prod ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, England.

The collection

MoD Donnington was part of the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency (DSDA). Historically Donnington was the storage area for all weapons used by the

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

. Part of this function was the disposal of old, captured and obsolete weapons. The majority of these were converted to scrap metal. In the years Donnington has been functioning, many items returned for disposal were deemed worthy of retaining because of their rarity or historic significance. In all, a collection of over 700 items was amassed varying from civilian and sporting arms to captured foreign weapons. In 2010, a decision was made by the

Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

to gift the collection to a public museum. Under the guidance of

Kevan Jones Kevan David Jones, Baron Beamish, (born 25 April 1964), is a British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for North Durham from 2001 to 2024. He has been a me ...

MP, then Under Secretary for Defence it was decided that the

would be the recipient of the collection. The museum received a lottery grant to extend its premises to facilitate this and now has it on public display. The existence and details of the Donnington collection and its transfer to a public museum appears in the DSDA Annual report and accounts for 2008–2009. The opening ceremony of the collection to the public at the Combined Military Services Museum in Maldon, was performed by Kevan Jones, the Under Secretary for Defence, in April 2010.

References

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External links

Opening ceremony at Combined Military Services Museum Maldon

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Year of establishment missing Collections of museums in the United Kingdom Weapons of the United Kingdom History of the British Army History of Shropshire Culture in Essex