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Elsie Knocker; Mairi Chisholm

5 of 6 portraits of Elsie Knocker

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Elsie Knocker; Mairi Chisholm

by S.A. Chandler
bromide print, circa 1917
Given by Terence Pepper, 1997
Photographs Collection
NPG x87250

On display in Room 25 on Floor 2 at the National Portrait Gallery

Sittersback to top

Artistback to top

  • S.A. Chandler (active 1905-1958), Photographers. Artist or producer of 4 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Flavia Frigeri, Women At Work: 1900 to Now, 2023, p. 44
  • Moorhouse, Paul; Faulks, Sebastian (essay), The Great War in Portraits, 2014 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 27 February - 15 June 2014), p. 117 Read entry

    Ambulance driver and first-aider, Elsie Knocker (1885-1978) was born in Exeter, Devon. She trained as a nurse and in August 1914 became a despatch rider in London with the Women's Emergency Corps. Recruited by Dr Hector Munro, founder of the Flying Ambulance Column, she left for Belgium in September 1914. With Mairi Chisholm (1896-1981, on the right), her work driving an ambulance led her to recognise the importance of giving the wounded first aid before moving them. With Dr Munro's support, both women - who became known as the Madonnas of Pervyse - set up a dressing-station yards from the front line, treating some 23,000 casualties.

Subject/Themeback to top

Events of 1917back to top

Current affairs

King George V changes his name from 'Saxe-Coburg' to 'Windsor.' Amid wartime anti-German public sentiment the British Royal Family decided to relinquish their German name and titles. The name 'Windsor' was chosen as variation on ''Wettin', the late Prince Albert's personal surname.

Art and science

The National Photographic Record is established at the instigation of the photographer Walter Stoneman to commission photographs of 'distinguished living contemporaries of British nationality.' This project allowed the National Portrait Gallery to circumvent its own rule that portraits could not enter the collection until the sitter had been dead ten years.

International

The Russian Revolution begins with the February Revolution and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. Seven months later the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin seize power in the October Revolution forming the Soviet Communist Government, which lasted until 1991. The USA abandons its neutrality and joins the war against Germany following a series of attacks on American passenger and merchant ships.

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