THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN OBJECTS
NO.34
A portrait of Bruce Bairnsfather in uniform. He served in the RoyalWarwickshire Regiment at the same time as A.A. Milne and Bernard Law Montgomery.
(US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)
Born into a military family at Muree on India’s North West Frontier (now Pakistan)on 9 July 1887, Charles Bruce Bairnsfather is one of the best known of the UK’s First World War artists and cartoonists. Educated at Rudyard Kipling’sold school, Bairnsfather passed the Army entrance exam and enlisted in the Militia. He then studied at commercial art school but re-enlisted with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment when war broke out in 1914.It was as a Second Lieutenant in the 1stBattalion that he arrived on the Western Front, going on to experience the sights and sounds that ultimately led to him becoming a household name by the end of the war.
