A WAAF from Kenya, 302: Cpl M McClelland by Edith Honor Earl, chalk on paper

Edith Honor Earl made this portrait drawing for her exhibition 'Warriors of the Empire' with the Royal Empire Society, which opened in London’s Grosvenor House in December 1944. It is one of 22 portraits by her in the RAF Museum collection (besides others elsewhere) which celebrate the contributions of Service personnel from the British colonies and Commonwealth in the Second World War.

Earl came from a wealthy and influential family – the niece of writer William Somerset Maugham and daughter of Frederick, 1st Viscount Maugham, Chancellor of the Exchequer under Neville Chamberlain – and used her influence for philanthropic ends. In 1941 she established the All Nations Voluntary Service League for the welfare of war refugees in Britain, and she staged wartime exhibitions of her work in aid of charities. She intended for her Warriors of the Empire portraits to raise awareness of, and foster social cohesion with, the ‘thousands of men and women who came from all over the Commonwealth to help win the war … soldiers, sailors and airmen, representing every part of what was then termed the “Dominions” and “Colonies”’. Earl drew personnel she met in club rooms or had contacted through Services organisations. She celebrated the distinctive identities of her sitters’ native countries by drawing in the corners of the portraits small, evocative vignettes of landscapes and landmarks. In educating people about her sitters' origins and cultures, she hoped to ‘make the British people more aware of the enormous debt of gratitude we owed to those splendid people’, and devoted proceeds of the exhibition to their welfare and hospitality. The subject of this portrait, Corporal M.G. McClelland (service number 2078156), served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). She went on to be Mentioned in Despatches (MiD) in the King's New Year's Honours list of 1946, which would have involved a superior officer naming her in an official report sent to a high command, describing either her gallant or meritorious action. Although WAAFs were not engaged in combat, their work exposed them to similar dangers as those of airmen on the Home Front, and they undertook a range of skilled roles in, for example, aircraft maintenance and meteorology, and served as radar, wireless and telegraph operators. While sitters' names, roles and countries were described by the artist, further research requires to be undertaken to shed more light on their biographies and service. The RAF Museum welcomes and encourages the sharing of information which may develop a more detailed record of each sitter. Purchased in 1988. Copyright: the Artist's Estate / RAF Museum.