by James Taylor
Mac’s anti-waste poster, 1941 (IWM)
‘YOU can help to build me a ship’, 1950s (IWM)
The art critic William Gaunt wrote a piece in The Times on 21st June 1961 to mark the centenary of the British Poster Advertising Association, originally the United Kingdom Bill-Posters’ Association, founded in May 1861. In his piece ‘Posters as an Open Air Art Gallery’, he noted: ‘In the present century the poster has shown a varied and somewhat uneven development. As an addition to the gaiety of the nation the posters of John Hassall (e.g. “SKEGNESS IS SO BRACING”) in the earlier years of the century and the Guinness posters of John Gilroy in more recent times at once come to mind. The power of the medium in conveying a serious and urgent message was memorably shown by the Kitchener poster of the 1914–1918 War, “YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU”.’ Gaunt was muddled in his recollections as he is referring to the artwork for London Opinion and not a recruitment poster.
On 26th September 1972, The Times reviewed two new publications, First World War Posters and Second World War Posters by Joseph Darracott and Belinda Loftus (published by the Imperial War Museum, priced at 85 pence each). Under the heading ‘Background to wartime posters – from Kitchener to bombing at Coventry’, the review said: ‘These two books [booklets] provide interesting background to some of the most notable posters in the collection of the Imperial War Museum, which amounts to 30,000 posters and proclamations from the First World War and 20,000 from the Second… Although the message and influence of some poster painters can be seen in both wars – Alfred Leete’s famous poster of Kitchener and his pointing finger, for instance was copied in several countries and the theme repeated in the 1939–45 War – there was an apparent change in emphasis. Posters by 1939 were more advisory and contained less exhortation.’
By this time it seemed as if everyone believed Alfred Leete’s poster was the famous and dominant recruitment one of World War I, because they had been told this was so from places that most people then trusted.
Russian poster by Dmitri Moor, 1920 (Priv.)
1990s British Army recruitment poster (British Army/NAM)
Enduring influence in the 21st century
Although Leete’s wartime cartoon cover of Lord Kitchener may not have been lent out to many exhibitions since the 1970s, it has certainly been seen on TV and published in numerous books and catalogues. In more recent decades, images have been available for millions to see and download on the Internet. Countless posters, postcards and products feature Leete’s design, or adaptations of it, around the world.
Both Leete’s and Flagg’s designs continue to be adapted today for a wide range of purposes; to encourage people to participate in commercial and recreational activities; as well as economic, educational, political or occupational pursuits; and to persuade people to donate something – expertise, labour or money for worthwhile or charitable causes. In 1998, the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi adapted Leete’s wartime cartoon of Kitchener for its ‘Your Country Needs YOU’ campaign to encourage Afro-Caribbean and Asian recruits to join the British Army. Examples of these posters are on display in the Conflicts of Interest gallery of the National Army Museum, London.
The enduring influence of Leete’s design lies in its adaptability. In addition there is the novelty format of the cartoon to consider that derives from commercial advertising pre-World War I. And how many of us were told as children that pointing was rude? Perhaps there is also a naughty pleasure to be derived from the imagery too.
One of the most memorable political cartoons adapted from Leete’s design was by the brilliant British cartoonist Peter Brookes. It appeared in The Times on 7th October 2010 and featured David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, in the guise of Lord Kitchener with the familiar outstretched arm, but this time with a clenched fist with the word ‘CUTS’ written across his fingers.
Leete’s grave in Weston-super-Mare (Auth.)
That Leete’s cartoon and poster designs have been copied and adapted time after time across the world is without question – if only he could have copyrighted his design during his lifetime.
According to the obituary printed in The Times on 19th June 1933, after being taken ill on a trip to Italy, Alfred Leete returned home to 34, Pembroke Square, Kensington in London, where he died of a cerebral haemorrhage.
REFERENCES
1 Parliamentary Recruiting Committee (PRC) records WO 106/367, National Archives, Kew.
2 Nicholas Hiley, ‘“Kitchener wants you” and “Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?” – the myth of British recruiting posters’, Imperial War Museum Review, 11, 1997.
3 For more information on the early years of the Imperial War Museum and the curator L.R. Bradley, see Jim Aulich and John Hewitt, Seduction or instruction? First World War posters in Britain and Europe, Manchester University Press, 2007. See also, annual reports and records of the Imperial War Museum.
4 The BRITONS – WANTS YOU poster bears no date of publication. It is inscribed at the bottom right-side ‘Reproduced by permission of London Opinion’.
5 The Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York records provide additional information on David Allen and Sons. The company operated as printers and publishers of posters for hotels, railway companies and theatres. They used many well-known artists of the day to create images for them. A large number of posters were later reproduced as lithographic postcards. They also made artist-drawn postcards for other advertisers. Their factories were located in Harrow and Belfast up to 1918 and the company merged with Mills & Rockleys, Ltd. in 1965.
6 Nicholas Hiley, ‘Sir Hedley Le Bas and the Origins of Domestic Propaganda in Britain 1914–1917’, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 21 Issue: 8, 1987.
7 Carlo Ginzburg, ‘“Your Country Needs YOU”: A Case Study in Political Iconography’, History Workshop Journal, Issue 52, Autumn 2001. For a brief summary of the arguments and evidence of both Ginzburg and Hiley see Picture This: World War I Posters and Visual Culture (Studies in War, Society, and the Military), edited by Pearl James, University of Nebraska Press, 2010.
8 Philip Warner, Kitchener – The Man Behind The Legend, Cassell, 2006.
9 Peter Simkins, Kitchener’s Army – The Raising of the New Armies 1914–1916, Manchester University Press, 1988.
10 Henry David Davray, Through French Eyes – Britain’s Effort, Constable and Company, 1916. Churchill’s critical comments on Lord Kitchener are recorded by Davray.
11 National Portrait Gallery, London archives.
12 Martyn Thatcher’s Myth and Magic, an essay on the iconic ‘Kitchener’ poster, privately printed, 2011. Largely reliant on Hiley and Ginzburg, though interactions with members of The Great War Forum revealed details about James Motherwell.
13 The lack of records of private printing firms is problematic in stating categorically the numbers of posters printed, although a comparison with the print numbers of official posters produced in smaller runs does provide some indication. The National Archives of Australia holds a record of commercial printing companies such as Troedel & Cooper Pty. Ltd. [established 1863 – Engravers, lithographers, general printers and stationers at Bank Place, Melbourne]. Dated 29th September 1915, this record includes estimates of printing recruitment posters for the Federal Parliamentary War Committee in numbers of 5,000, 7,500 and 10,000. Both official and private posters in Canada were also printed in small runs.
14 PRC records, ibid.
15 Each cigarette card was published by the PRC except ‘Rally Round the Flag’, which was after a design by H.E. Collett and published by the Central London Recruiting Depot.
16 Nicholas Hiley, ‘“Kitchener wants you” and “Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?” – the myth of British recruiting posters’, Imperial War Museum Review, 11, 1997.
17 Imperial War Museum archives and Chris McNab, The World War I Story, The History Press, 2011.
18 PRC records, ibid.
19 Imperial War Museum archives.
20 Jim Aulich
and John Hewitt, Seduction or instruction? First World War posters in Britain and Europe, Manchester University Press, 2007.
21 Nicholas Hiley, ‘Sir Hedley Le Bas and the Origins of Domestic Propaganda in Britain 1914–1917’, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 21 Issue: 8, 1987.
22 Sir Hedley Francis Le Bas (editor), The Lord Kitchener Memorial Book, Hodder and Stoughton, 1917.
23 ibid.
24 British Library Manuscripts Add 54,192. For a broader and more detailed account of the operations and workings of the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee (PRC), see Roy Douglas, ‘Voluntary Enlistment in the First World War and the Work of the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee’, The Journal of Modern History, The University of Chicago Press, Vol. 42, No. 4, December 1970.
25 PRC records, ibid.
26 British Library Manuscripts Add 54,192.
27 PRC records, ibid.
28 ibid.
29 Nicholas Hiley, ‘Sir Hedley Le Bas and the Origins of Domestic Propaganda in Britain 1914–1917’, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 21 Issue: 8, 1987.
30 PRC records, ibid.
31 ibid.
32 ibid.
33 ibid.
34 Nicholas Hiley, ‘“Kitchener wants you” and “Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?” – the myth of British recruiting posters’, Imperial War Museum Review, 11, 1997.
35 ibid.
36 PRC records, ibid.
37 Lornie Leete-Hodge, Alfred Leete, produced in association with an exhibition, ‘The Art of Alfred Leete’, to mark the centenary of his birth, Woodspring Museum publication, 1982.
38 ibid.
39 ibid.
40 ibid.
41 James Taylor, Careless Talk Costs Lives – Fougasse and the Art of Public Information, Conway, 2010.
42 Archives and records of the London Sketch Club.
43 ibid.
44 David Cuppleditch, The John Hassall Lifestyle, The Dilke Press, 1979. The Victoria and Albert Museum records state that ‘This poster was first issued by the Great Northern Railway in 1908. It was then reissued by London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) about 1925. John Hassall (1868–1948) produced many posters for the clients of the printers David Allen & Sons. His greatest strength was his humour, which made his images highly popular both then and now.’
45 Gary Tynski, Print Curator of the Canadian War Poster Collection with assistance from Jennifer Wile (see website of McGill University rare books and special collections).
46 South African military records
47 ibid.
48 Jeremy Sinclair, Testing the Nation: World War I – A Study Aid for students and teachers, VCE, 2011.
49 ibid.
50 See Peter Stanley, What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? A Visual History of Propaganda Posters/A Selection from the Australian War Memorial, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1983, and the National Archives of Australia: AWM93, 7/1/158, Australian War Museum report on distribution of Norman Lindsay posters during the ‘Last Australian Recruiting Campaign’, 18th May 1920.
51 New Zealand military records.
52 Eric Van Schaack, ‘The Division of Pictorial Publicity in World War I’, Design Issues, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vol. 22, Number 1, Winter 2006.
53 Frederick Augustus Fidfaddy, The Adventures of Uncle Sam in Search After His Lost Honor, Middletown, 1816.
54 Susan E. Meyer, James Montgomery Flagg, Watson-Guptill Publications, 1974.
55–66 ibid.
67 Flagg’s poster is billed as ‘The Most Famous Poster’ and featured in the ‘Treasures of the American Library of Congress’. See www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm015.html
68 See ‘Early Images of Flagg’s Uncle Sam’ at the National Heritage Museum website: http://nationalheritagemuseum.typepad.com/library_and_archives/2008/06/early-images-of.html
69 Flagg’s formal relationship with the DPP did not last for long. No doubt his prickly personality is the likely explanation for his absence from committees. Creel does not mention him once in his recollections of the DPP published in How we advertised America… (see below).
70 George Creel, How we advertised America; the first telling of the amazing story of the Committee on public information that carried the gospel of Americanism to every corner of the globe, Harper & Bros, 1920. See also the Records of the Committee on Public Information (Records Group 53) 1917–21, National Archives, Washington, D.C., USA.
71 ibid.
72 ibid.
73 Correspondence between Raymond Kinstler and author James Taylor. Kinstler assisted Susan Meyer (Flagg’s biographer) with her publication and she claimed that he would neither confirm nor deny the question of whether his Uncle Sam was inspired by Alfred Leete’s Lord Kitchener design. It is far more likely Flagg first came across Leete’s cartoon in the pages of London Opinion. He may also have seen it in postcard form too.
74 Eric Van Schaack, ‘The Division of Pictorial Publicity in World War I’, Design Issues, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vol. 22, Number 1, Winter 2006.
75 George Creel, How we advertised America…, Harper & Bros, 1920.
76 Walton Rawls, Wake Up, America! World War I and The American Poster, Abbeville Press, 1988.
77 ibid.
78 Correspondence between James Taylor and Raymond Kinstler.
79 Correspondence between James Taylor and Nick Hiley.
80 ibid.
PICTURE CREDITS
Picture credits are listed with each individual image. The author has made every effort to research the illustration sources and credit them accordingly in this publication. If any unintentional errors or omissions have occurred we sincerely apologise and will endeavour to rectify them in a future edition.
Abbreviations in the individual caption credits refer to the following sources:
Auth. = Author’s Collection
BL = British Library
IWM = Imperial War Museum
KCL = King’s College, London
LLIS = Leeds Library and Information Services
LoC = Library of Congress
NAM = National Army Museum
NH = Nicholas Hiley
NLAC = National Library and Archives, Canada
NLI = National Library of Ireland
NMA = National Museum of Australia
NPG = National Portrait Gallery
Priv. = Private Collection
SHC = Somerset Heritage Centre
INDEX
A
advertising 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22
Australian Imperial Force (AIF) 1, 2
Arkell, Reginald 1, 2
Artists Rifles Regimental Association (ARRA) 1
Asquith, Herbert Henry, Lord 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Asquith, Lady 1
Australia 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13‚ 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) 1, 2
Australian Flying Corps 1
Austria 1, 2, 3
B
Baden-Powell, Robert, Lord 1, 2, 3, 4
Bairnsfather, Bruce 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Bassano, Alexander 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Bateman, Henry Mayo (H.M.) 1, 2, 3
Belgium 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; Flanders, 1;
Ypres, 1, 2
Bird, Cyril Kenneth (‘Fougasse’) 1, 2
Boer War, the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Bradley, L.R. 1
Brazil 1, 2
‘Breaking it Gently’ 1, 2
Bristol 1, 2, 3
British Admiralty 1
British Army 1, 2
British Empire 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
British Library 1, 2
Browne, Tom 1, 2, 3
Bryant, Mark 1
Bulgaria 1
Bystander, The 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
C
Canada 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15; Montreal 1, 2, 3, 4
cartoons 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39
Cavell, Edith 1
Caxton Publishing Company 1, 2
China 1
Christy, Howard Chandler 1, 2, 3
Churchill, Winston 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
cigarette cards 1, 2, 3
Cooper, Thomas Sidney 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Creel, George 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Crystal Palace 1
D
Daily Express 1
Daily Mail 1, 2
David Allen and Sons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
Davray, Henry David 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Denmark Jutland, 1
Dixon, Charles 1
Dulac, Edmund 1
E
Edwards, Lionel 1
Egypt 1, 2, 3, 4
F
