Sunday 10 July 2016

Olive Edis (1876 – 1955) – British WW1 official photographer

Mary Olive Edis was born on 3rd September 1876 in Marylebone, London in 1876.  Her father was a professor of Gynaecology at University College Hospital.

Olive and her sister set up photographic studios in Sheringham in Norfolk, Farnham in Surrey and in Ladbroke Grove, London.   By 1912 she was working on colour photography.

 
During the First World War, Olive was an official war photographer. She was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum at the end of the war to travel to the Western Front to take photographs of the work being done there by British women.

 
In 1928 in Paddington, Olive married Edwin Henry Galsworthy, a cousin of the poet/writer John Glasworthy.   She died on 28th December 1955.

 
Olive’s photographic studio in Sheringham was in South Street.   Copies of her work are held in the Museum at Sheringham.

 
The Imperial War Museum has put some of Olive’s photographs on-line for us all to see http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/we-sent-a-photographer-to-1919-france-here-are-her-photos

 
Sources:  Find my Past, Free BMD, Wikipedia