Photographers > Tom Aitken
(10) N.387 - Canaries which have been rescued from amidst the ruins in shelled areas
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| First World War 'Official Photographs' > Photographers > Tom Aitken > (10) N.387 - Canaries which have been rescued from amidst the ruins in shelled areas |
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| Permanent URL | https://digital.nls.uk/74548998 |
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| Description | British soldiers with rescued canaries, France, during World War I. Well known for their fondness of animals, this image shows British soldiers checking up on the health of some canaries who were found in residential areas that had suffered heavy shelling. Given the manner in which front line soldiers often adopted domestic pets that had been abandoned during a war as regimental mascots, perhaps it is not so surprising that some canaries managed to survive the fighting. There were also some human 'canaries’ during World War I. These human 'canaries’ were the munitions workers whose skins turned yellow and orange due to the chemicals they were exposed to daily - hence the nickname. The chemical that caused this skin colouring is tetryl. Tetryl is a synthetic chemical that was used to make explosives, mostly during World War I and World War II. [Original reads: 'OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE BRITISH WESTERN FRONT IN FRANCE. Canaries which have been rescued from amidst the ruins in shelled areas. Hundreds were found dead in their cages through gas and wounds, but these survived and are now well looked after.'] |
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| Description | Tom Aitken was a newspaper photographer from Glasgow who was assigned in December 1917 as a war photographer along with David McLellan and Armando Consolé. McLellan's work also features in the National Library of Scotland’s Haig Papers. War photographers held a hybrid position during World War I, being part of yet not ultimately responsible to the military. |
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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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