Photographers > David McLellan
(111) L.667 - Friend of a motor transport section placed in position by the roadside in France
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| First World War 'Official Photographs' > Photographers > David McLellan > (111) L.667 - Friend of a motor transport section placed in position by the roadside in France |
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| Permanent URL | https://digital.nls.uk/74548814 |
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| Description | Charlie Chaplin scarecrow, France, during World War I. This rather bizarre and macabre photograph shows two soldiers, identified in the caption as members of a transport unit, laughing at a scarecrow figure dressed as Charlie Chaplin, while a third man has written 'Our Charlie' on a rock. It is quite disturbing because the face appears very lifelike. The 'scarecrow' could possibly be a dead man, but it is less unsettling to imagine it is from one of the life-size cardboard cut-out figures used outside cinemas at the time. Charlie Chaplin began his stardom in silent films in 1914, and in 1915 created the 'Little Tramp' character he is famous for. [Original reads: 'OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE BRITISH WESTERN FRONT IN FRANCE. A friend of a motor transport section placed in position by the roadside in France.'] |
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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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