The contribution of British women to First World War photography has received little attention in comparison to that of later conflicts. This neglect is mostly due to the prevailing assumption that a war photographer must be a professional photojournalist with access to the battlefield and front line combat. However, such a narrow definition renders a proper appreciation of war photography and its practitioners impossible, particularly with regard to the First World War.

A broader definition is certainly important when considering women’s photography during this period. No professional female photojournalist had access to the battlefield or front line combat between 1914 and 1918. However, in the years since its foundation in 1917, IWM has assembled an extensive collection of professional and amateur photography taken by women for official, commercial or private purposes in the First World War. These photographs offer an important account of the general human experience of the war and a unique feminine perspective. Three collections, comprising photographs by Christina Broom, Olive Edis and Florence Farmborough, are of particular interest for the varied insights which they offer on the war and on the practice of photography by women at this time.

Christina Broom (1862-1939) and Olive Edis (1876-1955) were amongst the first women to build careers as freelance professional photographers in Britain. Both entered professional photography in 1903 in order to earn a living and support their families. Both were well educated by the standards of the day, but were essentially self-taught as photographers. Despite differences in approach and technique, both achieve a combination of formality and subtle intimacy in their photography.

Broom worked primarily in London as a freelance photographer from 1903 until her death in 1939. Now recognised as the first woman to style herself a press photographer, she submitted photographs, most notably of the Suffragette movement, to picture agencies for publication in magazines and national newspapers. But the core of her business, and the key formative influence on her photography, was the picture postcard industry, which peaked in popularity between 1902 and 1914. Trading as Mrs Albert Broom and equipped with a medium format glass plate camera, Broom developed an effective style of group photography, shot primarily on location in the open air. Adept stage management and a subtle empathy for her subjects resulted in formal, carefully composed, yet revealing photographs which were often surprisingly intimate.

Broom’s technique lent itself to military and ceremonial subjects. In 1904, an assignment with the Scots Guards resulted in her appointment as official photographer to the Brigade of Guards and Household Cavalry. This unprecedented accolade, sanctioned by King Edward VII, gave Broom unique access to these regiments, regarded as the elite of the British Army, at their London headquarters during the war.

Although it could be argued that Broom’s photography as a whole is somewhat formulaic, this criticism is less applicable to her wartime photography. Her coverage of the regiments preparing to leave London for France in August 1914 is candid, spontaneous and entirely devoid of the patriotic fervour then sweeping the country. Broom had worked with these soldiers for ten years. This was not just a professional assignment. It was a personal farewell to men she knew well and might not see again. Her photographs convey a grim urgency as men gather their equipment and assemble for departure.

Broom’s subsequent coverage of wartime events in the London area is similarly expressive. A group of women police officers, photographed in 1916, are undeniably formidable, and makes a clear point about these former suffragettes who had abandoned their violent political protest of the pre-war years to uphold the law in wartime Britain. A photograph showing a group of Women’s Volunteer Reserve signallers conveys amateurish enthusiasm. Inherent welcome and relief pervades Broom’s depiction of massed ranks of fresh-faced American troops at lunch soon after their long-awaited arrival in Britain. Broom’s final photograph of the war, showing sombre crowds assembled outside Buckingham Palace on Armistice Day in November 1918, is strikingly funereal. A complete absence of celebration suggests fatigue and personal loss.