Historian helps to develop 54 million National Civil War Centre

Dr Andrew Hopper (pictured) from the Centre for English Local History has helped to develop a £5.4 million National Civil War Centre in the East Midlands.

He will be attending its Royal opening on Friday 25 September, where HRH the Earl of Wessex will be opening of the Centre at Newark Museum, the first museum dedicated to the British Civil Wars with a national focus.

Dr Hopper has been involved with the development of the Centre since 2011 and recently assisted the Museum in acquiring a capital grant of £64,000 from the Wolfson Foundation to establish a research centre in the Museum on the theme of Care, Medicine and Military Welfare during the British Civil Wars.

Last month, Dr Hopper organised the Museum’s inaugural conference on this theme, attended by international speakers and an audience of 90 academics, schoolteachers, museum volunteers and enthusiasts.

A planned temporary exhibition will open at the National Civil War Centre in February 2016 showcasing the surgery and medicine of the 1640s, along with the revolutionary establishment by the Long Parliament of permanent military hospitals and a nationally-implemented county pension scheme for maimed soldiers and war widows.