Photographers > David McLellan
(24) L.474 - Plucky sisters on British ambulance train in France who are near enough to the battle zone to see the shells falling
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| First World War 'Official Photographs' > Photographers > David McLellan > (24) L.474 - Plucky sisters on British ambulance train in France who are near enough to the battle zone to see the shells falling |
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| Permanent URL | https://digital.nls.uk/74548602 |
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| Description | This photograph has a rather formal and stilted feel to it. The women don’t seem relaxed and their positions do not look natural. It was most likely that this photograph was taken with a propaganda purpose in mind. Whether to boost morale, with the implication that female company could be found at the Front, or to boost recruitment into the nursing corps, with the prospect of a uniform and danger, is now a little difficult to tell. Nursing was one of the few roles which allowed women to travel to the Front and become actively involved in service there. Even then many women had to work hard to have their participation in this dangerous and slight grim role, accepted in society. [Original reads: 'OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE BRITISH WESTERN FRONT IN FRANCE. Plucky sisters on British ambulance train in France who are near enough to the battle zone to see the shells falling.'] |
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| Description | Formerly a photographer with the 'Daily Mirror’, a newspaper which led the field in pictorial journalism, McLellan was appointed as an official war photographer in December 1917 along with Tom Aitken whose work also features in this collection. McLellan is especially noted for his work capturing the huge scale of operations on the Front. McLellan was one of five official photographers working on the Western Front, for the propaganda department during the last two years of the war. The photographers were driven to the site the authorities wanted them to photograph, which meant that most of their material was also largely censored. This did not, however, mean that the photographer did not get to know the people in the picture. |
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| Description | Photographs by named photographers. |
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| Description | Black-and-white photographs mainly of the Western Front during the First World War. Official British war photographers took many of them for propaganda purposes. Unless otherwise stated, titles are the photographs' original captions. From the papers of Field Marshal (Earl) Haig (1861-1928). The Haig Papers also contain Douglas Haig’s diaries. |
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| Shelfmark | Acc.3155 |
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