Museum of Army Music

The museum was housed at Kneller Hall until its closure. Its exhibits included historic musical instruments which had been used in military bands over the years, some of which developed into the instruments in use today while others, such as the serpent and ophicleide, were sent off to the land of obscurity as better inventions came along to replace them.

Museum c.1956

We know that by the 1930s a number of these instruments were displayed in cases within the office of the Director of Music. After the school returned from Aldershot following the war there was clearly a wish to make the collection more visible and the Kneller Hall diary records that on the 1st of March 1949, the School Museum was started in the room opposite the officers’ dining room.

27th September 1950 the School Museum was transferred to a hut in the professors’ boxes area.

The man who was chiefly responsible for the development of the museum was Lieutenant Colonel Rodney Bashford OBE, Grenadier Guards, starting from his tenure as the School Bandmaster in the 1950s and continuing through his time as the school’s Director of Music until shortly before his death in 1997.