Photographers > David McLellan
(52) L.542 - These tins are put in kilns and the solder extracted is of great value
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| First World War 'Official Photographs' > Photographers > David McLellan > (52) L.542 - These tins are put in kilns and the solder extracted is of great value |
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| Permanent URL | https://digital.nls.uk/74548666 |
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| Description | Tin cans being stored for melting down, France, during World War I. The blurred can arcing across the middle of the viewers vision gives this scene an immediacy and sense of vitality. The two soldiers standing on top of this massive heap of cans seem unconcerned for their own safety, although this pile would probably have been quite unstable and injuries from it collapsing would have been unpleasant. The third soldier is also wildly throwing a can at the top of the heap. Tin cans were mainly used for the transportation of bread and meat. Despite the need for metal in guns and clothing, the successful transportation of food outweighed these other matters and so tin rations were spent on these cans. As a result anything which could be reused from them was a huge bonus. [Original reads: 'OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE BRITISH WESTERN FRONT IN FRANCE. SALVAGE WORK IN FRANCE. These tins are put in kilns and the solder extracted is of great value.'] |
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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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