Olive Mudie Cooke - A War Artist's work discovered in a photo album in Toronto.

A short blog about an incidental find that I discovered while researching a wonderful photo album that belonged to Muriel English - a member of the Women's Legion serving in France during the Great War.

 

Among the photographs of the women, I recognised the name of one of the Motor Drivers. Olive Mudie-Cooke served in France and Italy from 1916 to the end of the war. In 1920 the Red Cross commissioned her to return to France and record the activities of the VADs. Olive's biography has been recorded before (see links below) and her artwork is widely recognised and reproduced.  The first two photos have been  helpfully named "The Mudie Cookes" but I do not know which one is Olive!

 

 Mudie Cooke's tea party

 

 

The album I am researching (free to view online, link below) not only has photos of Olive in France but also includes some artwork - some of it definitely hers and some that seems very likely to be  hers. I wonder if these works  have been seen before, hidden as they are in this obscure album

 

 "The Mudie Cookes"

Olive's two sisters also served in France.

 

While working as a VAD, Olive began to sketch and paint the scenes she saw around her, including ambulance drivers and medical staff. Most of her more well known watercolours that she painted after the war were purchased by the Red cross or the Imperial War Museum. However, among Muriel English's photo album were several cartoons and sketches - a couple seem to have definitely been done by Olive but one or two have no known artist - Could they be by Olive? What do you think?!

 

  

 

This is  definitely by Olive - it appears to be a Christmas Card sent by Olive from Italy to her old friends.

 

I think this is by Olive - it appears to be set in Italy and has that lightness of touch that she brings to many of her sketches.There is also a notation "26 MAC Keep Smiling" in the top left hand corner. Olive has also  written this on her Xmas Card

 

The next two items are cartoons found among the photographs in Muriel's album. They seem to me to be very much like Olive's work - they are certainly very accomplished - and Muriel had studied at art school before the War.

 

 

 

Even if some of these were not drawn by Olive, they are still rather wonderful! And hidden away in a photograph album that probably hasn't been opened in 100 years. Thank goodness the Museum of Toronto purchased it and even more luckily  - digitised it for free online access!

 

Finally, a sketch and a painting that can definitely be attributed to her!

 

 

 

 VAD ambulance driver in theory, in popular fiction and in real life’ 

by Olive Mudie-Cooke

Finally, Olive's most famous painting

 

 

In an Ambulance, painted by Olive Mudie-Cooke between 1916 and 1918 

© Imperial War Museum

 

It's been really enjoyable to delve once again into  Muriel English's "photo album" and to discover so much more but I was very saddened to discover that Olive committed suicide in a French Hotel room. She was aged just 36. Touchingly, her war service was very much recognised in the news story

 

 News relating to Olive's death. She died in September 1925.

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Mudie-Cooke

https://www.redcross.org.uk/stories/our-movement/our-history/women-war-artists 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasfisherlibrary/albums/72157703315352932/with/46352297704 

British Newspaper Archives 

Elizabeth (Mildred) Shillington - Women's Legion "Motor Driver" and Aircraft Pilot!

Following my blog about the the three albums of Women’s Legion Motor Drivers’ experiences during and directly after World War One that belonged to Muriel English, I am now delving into the lives of some of the women who are named in the photos. There is some information on the Women's Legion in my previous post and also some links below.

 

There are 200 photographs in Muriel's album and happily some of the women are named. I spotted one item that was not the photo of a person but a digitised copy of a farewell programme to "Miss Shillington" dated 1919. She seems to have been highly regarded by her colleagues.Fortunately this is quite an unusual name and so I chose this for my first research!

 

 

Elizabeth Mildred Shillington was born in 1881 in Belfast, her father John Johnston Shillington being a very wealthy linen merchant and one of the founder members of the Ulster Defence Union. John died in 1898 and left the vast sum of £57,000. This explains why when I follow Elizabeth through census returns and electoral registers, she gives her occupation as "private means", lives in prestigious addresses and has several servants. She also made at least 3  transatlantic trips to Canada before the War - her mother's family were from Canada. Indeed in 1913 Elizabeth was living at one of the most prestigious addresses in the UK - Hanover Square in London.

 

 

   

 

When war was declared in 1914 Elizabeth joined up almost immediately. She firstly joined the French Red Cross but at some stage in 1916 joined the Women's Legion as a "Motor Driver". As we shall see from her post-war experiences, Elizabeth was very much ahead of her time when it came to driving (and indeed, in piloting planes!!) Her duties seem to have been regarding transport in hospitals in France, principally connected to kitchens. As we have seen, she served with the Red Cross and latterly the Women's Legion for five years.

 

 

 Outside Women's Legion Quarters.

 

 

Elizabeth's contribution to the war effort was recognised when she was awarded the MBE in 1919. I have also discovered that her medals came up for sale several years ago. She never married and had no children and so I suspect they were sold by distant family members.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elizabeth had a most intrepid life once she left the Women's Legion!  She continued to make  trips to Canada on transatlantic liners.She drove her own car at a time when very few single women could drive or had the money to buy their own car. We know this because there was a report in the local paper of a traffic offence (she pleaded ignorance and was fined 10s 6d ; I doubt the size of the fine troubled her greatly!)

 

 I discovered one more facet of this intrepid women's life - she owned and flew three aeroplanes!! She owned a Tiger Moth and had a pilot's licence. As can be seen from the newspaper cuttings, she was very much an adventuress at a time when women aged over 21 in the UK had only just been given the vote. I cannot think for one moment that there were many female pilots and - according to the article below - none that owned three planes!! And who was looking forward to taking some of her friends for a flight!

 

 Elizabeth was a member of the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Flying Club (they sound pretty progressive at a time when women were routinely barred from many clubs - and of course, many occupations). She died in 1930. As an illustration of  just how highly   regarded by members of the Flying Club she was  - they arranged a "fly past" at her funeral! What a sight that must  have been!

 

 Once again, I have discovered how a woman from a very wealthy background joined the war effort, served abroad and mixed and lived with women from different backgrounds and lived in less than luxurious conditions for years. Elizabeth lived a very comfortable life until her 30s when she clearly leapt at the chance of adventure - her adventurous nature continuing after the war with her increasing interest in motorised transport. Never marrying, she was surely the epitome of the "new woman" of the inter war years so often described by social historians.

 

 

https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-articles/2024/august/muriel-the-ambulance-driver/

 

https://ntmountstewartconservationproject.wordpress.com/tag/womens-legion/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Legion 

 

Ancestry.co.uk

British Newspaper Archives 

Stories from a photo album - or - Putting the Women back in the Women's Legion!

I recently discovered over 200 photographs in three albums of Women’s Legion Motor Drivers’ experiences during and directly after World War I. The albums - held in a Toronto Archive belonged to Muriel M. English, beginning when she was working in the British Red Cross Convoys from 1915-1918. They also include images of the The Royal Army Service Corps, the Voluntary Aid Detachment, and others.  Among the photographs are other ephemera, including Christmas cards, postcards, and a leave pass.

 

 

 “Taken at Boesinghe, in Raging heat.”

 

This is a truly remarkable - and free to access - archive that has been digitised and presented on Flckr (see first link at the end of the blog).  She was born in 1881 in Cambridgeshire and until the War, did not have an occupation. When I looked a bit closer at Muriel's life, I discovered that it had already been extensively researched in a really interesting blog (see below) and so I decided, that as there are some named women (alas usually only a surname!) in the albums I'd have a go at researching them and bringing their stories to life.. Before I carry on - here are a few photos of Muriel aka, and helpfully named, as  self" in the album!

 

  

 

“Self & Sid: Deasy.”

No-one knows why the ambulance is called "Deasy"! 

 

 

Muriel was invited to a Buckingham Palace Garden Party in 1919.

 

 

She married Arthur Parker in 1924 I was lucky enough to find a photo of

their wedding at Bath Abbey

  

Arthur died in 1940 and Muriel survived him by 33 years. She married late in life -when she was 44 but was one of thousands of women who found their vocation and a fulfilling life during the War years - indeed she was active from 1914 to 1919. A long way from remaining a Rector's daughter in Cambridgeshire.

 

There are 200 photos on Flickr and a really excellent account of her life and particularly her War Service in the aforementioned blog - I highly recommend a browse! 

  

My next blogs will be about some of the women pictured in the photo album - as you can see, an intrepid bunch!

 

 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasfisherlibrary/albums/72157703315352932/with/40111069373

 

https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-articles/2024/august/muriel-the-ambulance-driver/