Photographers > David McLellan
(124) L.774 - Putney motor-bus in France doing service as a mobile pigeon loft
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| First World War 'Official Photographs' > Photographers > David McLellan > (124) L.774 - Putney motor-bus in France doing service as a mobile pigeon loft |
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| Permanent URL | https://digital.nls.uk/74548878 |
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| Description | Pigeon loft in a bus, France, during World War I. This photograph shows a bus, the back of which has been built up with wood to form a mobile pigeon loft. A corporal is standing beside the bus, lifting out a wicker basket of the type used to transport pigeons. As there is a car parked alongside, it is possible he is collecting a fresh supply of pigeons for the Front. Carrier pigeons were used throughout the war to carry messages, particularly from the Front back to Headquarters. When there was no time to lay telephone lines, pigeons could be more reliable. [Original reads: 'OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE BRITISH WESTERN FRONT IN FRANCE. A Putney motor-bus in France doing service as a mobile pigeon loft.'] |
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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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