Stunning dress once worn by remarkable Shrewsbury Major to go on display at Soldiers of Shropshire Museum
A haute couture army dress once worn by a Shrewsbury servicewoman will go on display after the Soldiers of Shropshire Museum received grant funding.
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The dress, which belonged to Major Joan Crooke, will be the museum's first display of a female service dress.
The museum, based at Shrewsbury Castle, is among a select number of successful applicants to the Association of Independent Museums’ ‘Museum Fundamentals Grant’, supported by the Pilgrim Trust and the Julia Rausing Trust.
The dress and purse were donated to the museum last year, as part of a collection of items linked to Major Crooke's long and distinguished career in the Women’s Royal Army Corps (WRAC), which spanned from the Second World War to the 1980s.
Dr Robert MacKinnon, from the museum, explained that the eye-catching dress was "one of the first examples of the WRAC’s ‘new look’ Mess uniform, designed in 1962 by Owen Hyde Clark of the House of Worth".
