Your Country Needs You

[JamesMSTaylor]

I'm sure that more photographs will turn up over the next five years. Most of them will probably feature the official Parliamentary Recruiting Committee posters that were numbered 1 to 164. However, there may well be a few more discoveries that will feature Leete's design and variants. One of the problems is that we know that the PRC posters were produced in large numbers. As the London Opinion BRITONS poster and the David Allen and Sons variant were privately produced posters we do not have documentation of the numbers produced and where exactly they were distributed. The numbers are likely to have been considerably less than the popular official posters recorded in the minutes / records of the PRC held in the National Archives.

By the early summer of 1915 when the realities of war were evident there is evidence of negative reactions to some of the posters. So perhaps those reactions also detered people them from taking pictures. A finger pointing....was in effect pointing towards possible disability and death.

JT

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Another version of the ' Kitchener ' recruitment poster, as it appeared on the front cover of the ' Opinion ' publication on 5th September, 1914.

LF

[JamesMSTaylor]

Hello LF,

It looks like the cover of the London Opinion magazine alright. Are you sure it was transformed into a poster?

JT

[JamesMSTaylor]

That's the cover image for sure which readers responded to very positively and that is why LO printed the image on fine art paper and was planning to produce the design in postcard form. The poster(s) follow on....

JT

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Hello LF,

It looks like the cover of the London Opinion magazine alright. Are you sure it was transformed into a poster?

JT

JT,

No, I do not know that it was a poster as such, but rather another version of the recruitment poster, used on the front cover of the ' Opinion ' in September 1914, which possibly qualifies it as a ' poster ', i.e. it was circulated with the intention of encouraging people to enlist.

Regards,

LF

[JamesMSTaylor]

LF,

I see now. Sorry for being slow on the uptake. Yes, it does act as a 'poster' in that sense and that explains how the image was distributed without even being pinned to a wall. The magazine was a massive powerful persuasive publicity machine in a way that is difficult to understand today with the technology that we possess.

Interesting observation.

JT

[MichaelBully]

Great to have this thread going again.

James I'm interested to hear more about what you perceive to be negative reactions to some of the posters.

Do you mean in the sense of some posters being greeted with apathy or do you mean even putting men off joining up?

Regards,

Michael Bully

I'm sure that more photographs will turn up over the next five years. Most of them will probably feature the official Parliamentary Recruiting Committee posters that were numbered 1 to 164. However, there may well be a few more discoveries that will feature Leete's design and variants. One of the problems is that we know that the PRC posters were produced in large numbers. As the London Opinion BRITONS poster and the David Allen and Sons variant were privately produced posters we do not have documentation of the numbers produced and where exactly they were distributed. The numbers are likely to have been considerably less than the popular official posters recorded in the minutes / records of the PRC held in the National Archives.

By the early summer of 1915 when the realities of war were evident there is evidence of negative reactions to some of the posters. So perhaps those reactions also detered people them from taking pictures. A finger pointing....was in effect pointing towards possible disability and death.

JT

[JamesMSTaylor]

Hi Michael,

Good to be back. Whatever turns up there is always something fresh in the GWF.

I'll check my notes for specific details but there is evidence of "bullying by poster". Also in the summer of 1915 (from memory) there is evidence in terms of the temporary suspension of official posters, and the ensuing scandal and satire of stockpiled posters. Cartoons were produced along the lines of "what to do with recruitment posters in peace time"! Lord Derby also was frustrated with recruitment posters and stated that they had had "their day".

I have not forgotten your poetry interests and am still pondering on who might be able to help.

JT

[funfly]

I has been my understanding that thousands of unused posters issued by the government were sent to schools and to the 'Colonies' Hence the proliferation of recruiting posters today in fairly good condition.

Difficult nowadays, of course, to judge how many of any particular poster was seen based on the number of unused ones remaining.

I suppose that raises the possibility that some posters in collections that originated from the stock of unused ones (and reproduced in literature) may never have actually seen the light of day on a wall.

Reading a new book today 'A History of the First World War in 100 Objects' by John Hughes-Wilson and backed by the IWM, showing a copy of the Leete artwork and in the note stating that very few 'Kitchener' posters were actually displayed and certainly none outside of London!

Mart

[funfly]

A poster that has been used by many of us to illustrate the 'emotional' approach to recruitment posters in the Great War;

As far as I can see there are no contemporary references to this poster and no photographs show it on display anywhere.

I know that Hiley referred to it in 1997 but he didn't have any record that it was ever seen as far as I can recall and it's certainly not on the 'famous' office wall.

Was this another 'myth' or maybe printed but never issued?

I'm sure our experts here will throw some light on this.

Mart

[johnboy]

Is it possible that some that we think of as posters were original artwork for publication in newspapers and magazines?

[funfly]

We are looking at a very small bit of the war and finding out how different the facts were to our perceived knowledge. Just consider how our detailed picture of events during that period may be a totally distorted one.

I'm not saying the war didn't happen but that there may be a lot that we think we know that is not factual and there may be a lot that we will never know and probably wouldn't understand.

Mart

[JamesMSTaylor]

Just back at the desk. Good to look and talk about other WWI posters.

'Daddy...' was a controversial PRC poster and there is evidence of its presence.

When you say Martyn not on the "'famous' office wall" I am pretty sure you mean number 12 Downing Street where some of the meetings were held to discuss the creation of the PRC posters amongst other matters.

There are two black and white photographs (which Nick Hiley flagged up in the 1990s) now in the British Library collections donated by the secretary of the PRC. The second photograph that may not be so familiar does indeed show the poster. Because the image is of such high res I have not been able to upload it.

I am fairly confident I have some records of it appearing in photograph(s) in Britain and aboard too - although I will have to delve through files to locate them.

JT

[MichaelBully]

Interesting points James ! Intrigued if it is possible to separate the poster with the Kitchener myth as it were. Or are you thinking in more general terms- that recruiting by poster was attracting a backlash ? The numbers of men needed to be recruited were increasing so interesting to hear that the authoirites may have had to change their tactics

Regards

Michael Bully .

Hi Michael,

Good to be back. Whatever turns up there is always something fresh in the GWF.

I'll check my notes for specific details but there is evidence of "bullying by poster". Also in the summer of 1915 (from memory) there is evidence in terms of the temporary suspension of official posters, and the ensuing scandal and satire of stockpiled posters. Cartoons were produced along the lines of "what to do with recruitment posters in peace time"! Lord Derby also was frustrated with recruitment posters and stated that they had had "their day".

I have not forgotten your poetry interests and am still pondering on who might be able to help.

JT

[David Ridgus]

By the early summer of 1915 when the realities of war were evident there is evidence of negative reactions to some of the posters. So perhaps those reactions also detered people them from taking pictures. A finger pointing....was in effect pointing towards possible disability and death.

JT

And it wasn't just recruitment posters that had a negative reaction. This poster was the "You're never alone with a Strand" advertising car crash of the Great War I seem to recall, and for obvious reasons:

David

[funfly]

Good to be back. Whatever turns up there is always something fresh in the GWF.

Welcome back James, Now that the offending post has been removed I feel that this thread can continue in a real constructive mode.

As most here will know, I am not a historian but an artist and my main interest lies in the world predicted by the original Post-modernists whereby our knowledge of the world that surround us is to a great extent governed by the input from the media, facts we take as gospel often turn out to be facts distorted not only by interested parties but by the sort of 'Chinese Whispers' that attach themselves to historical information. How often are 'facts' revealed to us after time which are different from information given to us at the time of an event (remember Edward & Wallace?). In another Great War thread there are comments about the images that dozens of articles and TV documentaries are using to support their work, often the images are miles away from the narrative with them. Great War contributors may be quick to reveal these as irrelevant but to most people there is a sort of 'trust' of program makers and writers.

When I do my talk on ther Kitchener Poster I often start by asking who this is?

Most people will, of course, say it's Kitchener.

But, of course, it's not Kitchener but a drawing of him made for an advert from a photograph taken almost 30 years before!

Most likely this one (although some people suggest others)

And to confuse matters further here is another picture taken of Kitchener at about the same time as the one above.

Many people would be pushed to recognise him in this one

In 1914 he probably looked very similar to a photograph taken a couple of years after 1914

...this is generally a good start for my talk and, I must admit, I can very easily drift from the thread!

Tomorrow I am giving a talk in Oswestry (North Shropshire) on Dada movement and Marcel Duchamp. I know it's late notice but if anyone is in the area, it is at the Willow Gallery.

Mart

[funfly]

By the early summer of 1915 when the realities of war were evident there is evidence of negative reactions to some of the posters

I have seen reports that the 'Remember Belgium' poster was overwritten 'Would I ever bloody forget the Place!'

also the 'Daddy what did You do in the Great War' overwritten 'I tried to stop the bloody thing my son'

Only stories though!

Mart

[funfly]

Over the years I have come across various suggestions about the photograph used by Alfred Leete to produce his artwork.

Most suggestions relate to photographs in the NPG and a lot of comparisons have been carried out.

Of course, we will never know, but what I think researchers seem to have overlooked is the logistics of the situation.

When you think of it, Leete was tasked to produce the artwork in a fairly short period of time. Are we really to believe that he nipped around to the National Portrait Gallery and chose a suitable photograph from their collection?

Then, of course, he would have had to get a copy of the photograph and take it back to his studio to copy, would the NPG have done this and if they would, would this have been done instantly?

It may have been that the London Opinion had a stock photo of Kitchener but I would suggest that the most likely source would have been a post card that was easily available, and we know that two of the photographs was made into a postcard and widely circulated.

Out of the two postcards circulating at the time, the one closest to his drawing was;

So is that really the one Leete copied?

Mart

[eairicbloodaxe]

Your logic makes a lot of sense, Martin.

It was always very difficult to find reference images in a pre internet world. Also, for the likeness to be obvious, it had to be subliminally recognisable.

Using a well known, well distributed image would be the only practical and sensible route.

Regards

Ian

[funfly]

My logic always makes sense, it's my memory that let's me down.

Sometimes I even believe myself ;-)

I have always felt that age does not bring wisdom. Us ' oldies' are more opinionated than wise and wo betide anyone who believes that because we pronounce information forcefully it gives this information credibility.

This 'old age wisdom' is a myth that we perpetuate in order to try to cling on to a modicum of respect from the younger generation as we crumble into senility and they acquire knowledge far in excess of anything we ever had.

I think that subconsciously we have a dislike of the younger generation because they seem to be earning too much these days.

[funfly]

This is a thread containing some very interesting and NEW photographs of the Great War. A collection of French magazines spanning the war years just found by one of our members.

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=193997

Mart.

[JamesMSTaylor]

Martyn, Thank you for the welcome back. It's good to move on.

So many interesting lines of enquiry going on at present.

Michael, sorry not to reply immediately. I am spending more time on the dreaded M1 motorway at present than is good for the health! Your passion for Kitchener and photographs of him - some great ones posted by Martyn above - do as you all know link together.

I think you are spot on Martyn with the postcard line of enquiry. Interestingly the Bassano series of photographic images was widely distributed in popular postcard formats. I have some tucked into albums.There were many hundreds of thousands of Kitchener images in circulation such was his motivating and moral boosting power.

My hunch is that primary image referenced by Leete derives from the Bassano glass plate negative [reference x 96369] in the NPG from which photographs were produced to make the postcards. The image correlates to the popular PRC poster, the colour postcard 'YOU Are The Man I Want' as well as Leete's cartoon of Kitchener. This glass plate negative was originally dated 1900. However in October last year I spoke to one of the photographic curators - Constantia Nicolaides - (a very helpful lady) who told me that she had just found the dates of registration of Bassano's photos of Kitchener in the National Archives. The date of 1900 for the half-plate glass negative was subsequently changed to 7 July 1899. You can see the negative when you search the NPG website. Certainly Leete saw many others too.

Now that colour image of Kitchener with the YCNY slogan posted above is of interest for the next post. It has been misdirecting folk for decades. More soon....

David - that is a brilliant poster - talk about 'car crash' - there must several other good example that would make a good article if you were inclined.

James

PS the NPG acquired the Bassano collection of original negative after the business closed in the 1970s(?)

[JamesMSTaylor]

I hope this links works as I am rubbish at posting pics.

JT

http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw55065/Horatio-Herbert-Kitchener-1st-Earl-Kitchener-of-Khartoum?LinkID=mp02564&wPage=2&role=sit&rNo=46

[funfly]

Above the reply box there are a number of boxes. To place a picture just click on the one I have arrowed and insert the URL.

Mart.

[funfly]

Here is the image that James was referring to, certainly the one used in the third (red) one post 388;