In 2002 publisher Charles Hewitt acquired the photographic archive of military collector and medals dealer, Peter N. Taylor of Barnsley, and in so doing instantly obtained thousands of potographs of both the First and Second World Wars. With this book, The Great War Illustrated 1915, a selection of over 1,000 images is displayed on its pages; an identification number has been given to the individual illustrations so that they may be ordered by authors, book designers, picture researchers and television and film programme makers. The images are all corrected and brought to the required specification and generous size requested by printers of books and magazines. The colour section has been produced by graphic designer Jon Wilkinson.
Peter Taylor has been dealing in medals and militaria for over twenty-five years, throughout which time he has had the foresight to buy up collections and albums of photographs, many of which were first generation press-release prints with an officially sanctioned caption on the back. In the eighties and nineties photographs of the Great War could be picked up for a few pence; now at arms fairs they may fetch up to £50 a print.
One hundred-year-old press release photographs may have incurred damage over time, such as the sample reproduced here of the hospital ship Braemar Castle preparing to leave Salonika. Present-day technology can bring about satisfactory restoration results that render an image suitable for reproduction. The example shown was heavily scratched, blistered, creased and faded out. A version of the same subject is shown below after it has been being worked on.
The Braemar Castle served in a variety of roles: as a cross-channel troop transport for the British Expeditionary Force in 1914; a troop transport in the Gallipoli campaign in 1915; and a hospital ship from 1915 onward. It was as a hospital ship in November 1916 that she struck a mine in the Aegean Sea, but was repaired. The attached picture label on the back reads:
ANOTHER HUN OUTRAGE ON THE RED CROSS
There is no atrocity too vile for the Huns to encompass, no outrage on Humanity’s laws too fragrant to perpetrate. Close upon the sinking of the Britannic hospital ship comes news that another stately liner, the Braemar Castle, bearing the sacred symbol of the Red Cross, has been ‘mined or torpedoed’ in the Aegean Sea. That all aboard, including homeward-bound wounded, are reported saved is a mercy that does not lesson the brutality of the crime. These photographs show the Braemar Castle ready to leave Salonica.
FRENCH OFFICIAL WAR PHOTOGRAPH