7 April 2017 – 24 September 2017
Durham University’s Oriental Museum, Elvet Hill, Durham, DH1 3TH
We have been working very closely with Durham University’s Oriental Museum since late 2014 to make this exhibition perhaps the most important exhibition there has ever been on the Chinese Labour Corps. We’re currently working on publicity, the information below is taken from the museum’s website.
An exhibition exploring the role of the thousands of Chinese who risked their lives alongside the British armed forces during the First World War.
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’.
This exhibition examines the vital role of the Chinese Labour Corps using historic photographs and objects created by the men at the front.
Image: WJ Hawkings Collection, courtesy of John de Lucy
Contact: oriental.museum@durham.ac.uk