Olive Kelso King

Olive May Kelso King (30 June 1885 – 1 November 1958) was an Australian adventurer and mountain climber. During World War I she drove ambulances for the Scottish Women's Hospitals and later the Serbian Army. In the final stages of the war she raised money and set up mobile canteens to help feed the Serbian people.

World War I Olive May Kelso King beside an Alda Motor Ambulance in Troyes In the summer of 1914, while King was visiting her sister Sunny in England, war broke out in Europe. Olive served briefly as an ambulance driver in Belgium, working for the Allied Field Ambulance Corps (AFAC), a volunteer organization. Using funds from her father, she supplied her own vehicle, a used lorry which she had converted into a 16-seater ambulance and christened 'Ella the Elephant' because of its size and weight.

During World War II, she volunteered to drive for the Australian Army but was told that she was too old. Still wanting to contribute in some way, she studied aircraft inspection and worked as a quality examiner at de Havilland Aircraft Pty Ltd from 1942 to 1944. In popular culture In her 2022 novel, Salonika Burning, the Australian writer Gail Jones fictionalises Olive King (as 'Olive'), and her experiences in Macedonia, along with British painters Grace Pailthorpe and Stanley Spencer, and Australian writer Miles Franklin.