7th April 2017, 10:00 to 24th September 2017, 17:00,
Oriental Museum, Elvet Hill, Durham, DH1 3TH

We have been privileged to have been working with Durham University’s Oriental Museum on this historic exhibition exploring the role of the thousands of Chinese who risked their lives alongside the British armed forces during the First World War. This exhibition examines the vital role of the Chinese Labour Corps using historic photographs and objects created by the men at the front.

96,000 Chinese men volunteered to work for Britain in the First World War as part of the Chinese Labour Corps. They undertook essential and often dangerous work behind the lines on the western front and thousands lost their lives. Yet their contribution was barely acknowledged at the end of the war and in the years that have followed they have been largely written out of histories of the war. They have been described as the ‘forgotten of the forgotten’.

Image: WJ Hawkings Collection, courtesy of John de Lucy

Contact oriental.museum@durham.ac.uk for more information about this event.