ss002d6252 Posted 29 July , 2013 Share Posted 29 July , 2013 however, and not wishing to be a party pooper There's always one . I must say that I'd thought the same though. Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveMarsdin Posted 30 July , 2013 Share Posted 30 July , 2013 Just to clarify, I've found my notes from Prof Simkin's talk and checked them with his book "Kitchener's Army: The Raising of the New Armies, 1914-16". I hadn't remembered correctly at all ! He said the poster was first used in that format in September 1914 and indeed over 200 recruiting posters of various types were produced but the point he made was, despite its iconic status now it did little to arrest the decline in recruitment at the time (i.e despite it perhaps been the most famous poster of all time, just how effective was it ?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRANVILLE Posted 30 July , 2013 Share Posted 30 July , 2013 Just to clarify, I've found my notes from Prof Simkin's talk and checked them with his book "Kitchener's Army: The Raising of the New Armies, 1914-16". I hadn't remembered correctly at all ! He said the poster was first used in that format in September 1914 and indeed over 200 recruiting posters of various types were produced but the point he made was, despite its iconic status now it did little to arrest the decline in recruitment at the time (i.e despite it perhaps been the most famous poster of all time, just how effective was it ?) Indeed, quite a valid point raised which harks back to what I turned up and posted at No. 45 (2nd link) in which the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee were getting to hear about just how hard one particular recruiting team had found it to get anyone in the slightest bit interested, in fact it reads as if the local population in that particular part of the country were potentially hostile to the idea as evidenced by the way recruiting posters were said to have been torn down. The more I've looked for this apparently 'iconic' poster, the more I fail to find it, which leads me to seriously wonder just how 'iconic' it actually was in its day. Could it be it only took on the status back in the 1960's when someone realised there might be some money to be made off the back of it? David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnboy Posted 30 July , 2013 Share Posted 30 July , 2013 I have searched many thousands of pics looking for drill halls, recruiting offices and High streets, Result----zilch. I started looking at High Streets and towns hoping to find a recruiting office---again nothing with the poster. Even pics of Town Halls and Post Offices have yielded none. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobL Posted 30 July , 2013 Share Posted 30 July , 2013 Would they have the poster actually inside military establishments, inside the recruiting halls etc? Does seem rather pointless to have it in a place where those inside are already joining/joined Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnboy Posted 30 July , 2013 Share Posted 30 July , 2013 Someone else said similar, that the posters were INSIDE Post Offices. Doesn't make a lot of sense though. Imagine the same situation today. Posters on every available outside space, leaflets through the door as regular as take away menus and phone calls from an Mumbai call centre!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveMarsdin Posted 30 July , 2013 Share Posted 30 July , 2013 In some ways it seems like the WW2 "Keep Calm..." posters, only really iconic after the event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funfly Posted 31 July , 2013 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2013 (edited) Visibility of the poster. A few of you have suggested that the poster may have been almost invisible at the time and has grown to become an icon over the intervening period. What you suggest is what a number of 'specialists' have claimed. There are no records, official or otherwise, of this poster. There is no photographic evidence of it on display anywhere. There was another, official, Kitchener poster around which people may have referred to. 1. There seem to be no records of any of the other privately produced recruiting posters of the period, this is to be expected as they were not official. 2. Photographs of posters tend to show recruiting offices where, as you would expect, only official posters are on display. However we do have two photographs which we have proof of as contemporary, showing 'our' poster on public display. 3. The design was copied within months by the US (the Uncle Sam poster) and by at least three European countries to use in their recruiting campaign. This could only have resulted if the poster was visible somewhere. 4. There were in fact two posters with the Leete design. The first printed in September 1914 by the London Opinion with the text 'Britons, Kitchener Wants You' and the other printed by David Allen and Sons in November 1914 with the text 'Your Country Needs You'. 5. finally, there are original posters kept in the IWM - they even sell copies of them. There are also many memoirs reporting the 'Kitchener with his pointing finger' including a quote from Kitchener himself when requested to reduce recruitment in 1915, he is quoted as saying 'I have recruited thousands by pointing my finger at them, do you expect me to stop them with my hand' (or words to that effect, I dont have the copy handy as I write this!) Overall, there is no doubt that NO single poster created the massive numbers that flocked to the recruitment offices. Men responded under the pressure of the massive impact of thousands of posters and newspaper articles. However, I am confident that 'our' poster did exist, was remembered by people and did act as an influence on poster design in other countries. Iconic at the time? maybe not, this seems to have happened since the 1950s. If I am to continue to rebuff the current wave of 'specialist' authors claiming that the poster never existed, I am going to need more photographs so keep looking please. Edited 31 July , 2013 by funfly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funfly Posted 31 July , 2013 Author Share Posted 31 July , 2013 I am currently reading Kitchener's Army, The raising of the new armies 1914-1916. by Peter Simkins. 1988. Manchester University Press. As you know, I'm a graphic designer not a 'war' person so my interest is in posters and advertising but I am finding this a fascinating book. Very interesting to read about the difficulties in finding clothes, food, accommodation and equipment for the thousands of men who enlisted. The country even ran out of buttons at one time ! Mart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRANVILLE Posted 31 July , 2013 Share Posted 31 July , 2013 Mart. Regarding your post at #58, there is no doubt the poster existed and as you mention, the IWM hold originals and produce a copy - I've had one since I first visited the museum in the late 1960's. This quotation from the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee minutes I previously posted, should give you further encouragement: This is a quote presented to the committed, made by F.L. Goldthorpe who joined the 1/5th Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. He was in Lancaster on the 5th August 1914 and witnessed the mobilisation of the local Territorials. “..............The accusing finger of Kitchener stabbed at me at every bill-posting..........” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clive_hughes Posted 31 July , 2013 Share Posted 31 July , 2013 In his (Welsh) autobiography W.Jones-Edwards of Cardiganshire refers to some sort of "Kitchener" posters being displayed. I quote in translation "I went to Aberystwyth on a Monday morning in April, 1915...[to enlist]. By now the war had come nearer home. A family or two of Belgian refugees had reached Pontrhydygroes, and Kitchener's poster ("Your King and your Country Need you") was in the post office there, and in Baugh the Tailor's shop. It was also facing everyone in the Pontrhydfendigaid post office." But that was how he recollected things in 1963, nearly 50 years after the event. There were also more than one "Kitchener" poster depending how you define it. There are the Leete types; and a bit of googling throws up a head-and-shoulders one of Lord K hatless and in a blue dress uniform on a Parliamentary Recruiting Committee poster, with text "Men, Materials, & Money are the Immediate Necessities...Enlist To-day." ?Maybe dates from July 1915 or just after, given its following hints at compulsion: I can only just read the date of the quote on the poster image. There are also text-only 1914 posters headed "Lord Kitchener's Appeal...100,000 Men" and "A Fresh Appeal By Lord Kitchener. Another 100,000". So references by the manager of Caernarfon Labour Exchange in North Wales on about 26 November 1914 to the fact that only general "Kitchener" and Regular Army type posters were on display there; and simultaneously at the Wrexham Labour Exchange that only locally-produced adverts for the North Wales Pals battalion and an English type entitled "Your King and Country Need You" can't be taken to confirm absolutely that the Leete types are being used. I concur with Mart's idea that no single poster or posters had a crucial effect on recruitment. It was the variety, the ubiquity, and the sheer weight of not just posters but leaflets, press adverts, booklets, cinema ads etc. that had an effect. Clive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robigunner88 Posted 31 July , 2013 Share Posted 31 July , 2013 There was also a late 1916 Kitchener poster which I mentioned in post #22. It must have been distributed after his death as it shows a flag-draped portrait (also hatless), with a sword, baton and a VC (Although I am sure he did not win a VC) in front of him. Also he appears much older than he does in the pointing finger posters. I have also found a Kitchener banner demanding for men and munitions. According to the website I found it on, the photograph was taken in Wellington, New Zealand. I wonder if he was given the same 'celebrity' status and appeal from the New Zealanders as was given to him by the British public? http://100nzww1postcards.blogspot.co.uk/2013_02_01_archive.html Perhaps searching local archives will unearth a few more photographs of the poster you are after Mart? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khaki Posted 31 July , 2013 Share Posted 31 July , 2013 I wonder if he was given the same 'celebrity' status and appeal from the New Zealanders as was given to him by the British public? appears to be a memorial wreath complete with black silk ribbons and I am guessing that the hand written 'verse' represents what is written within the wreath. In answer to your above question, I think that his heroic image was universal throughout the empire. I have a privately published NZ soldier memoir where a German POW made a comment to passing NZ troops about Kitchener 'being dead'. The Kiwi stepped out of the line and knocked the German 'cold' khaki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clive_hughes Posted 31 July , 2013 Share Posted 31 July , 2013 Robigunner, Your description sounds exactly like the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee poster from 1914 showing the late Field-Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar VC, who had died while visiting the BEF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clive_hughes Posted 31 July , 2013 Share Posted 31 July , 2013 Here's the 1915 Kitchener one: the message is a quote from a speech he made on 9 July 1915 so must date from after that time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robigunner88 Posted 31 July , 2013 Share Posted 31 July , 2013 Whoops my mistake! Thank you for correcting me LST_164! Really I should have known that it was Roberts, especially after living six years in a boarding house named after him and with his image scattered everywhere! Although the two descriptions on the websites I found showing that poster, both state it as being Kitchener which is weird. However, one of those websites was wiki, so perhaps I should double check my information next time...or in this case triple check.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funfly Posted 1 August , 2013 Author Share Posted 1 August , 2013 LST 164, Thanks for the post. The poster you show is one that has caused some confusion post WW1 and has added to the argument against our claim. This poster was an official poster produced by the government body the PRC and was officially known as the 'Kitchener' poster. It has been claimed (not by me) that the Kitchener poster remembered by many was this one not 'ours'. Robigunner88, thanks your post. You will understand that I have copies of hundreds and hundreds of recruiting posters from WW1 many gleaned from the internet searches and many from various books on the war. The only one I am interested in is the one with Kitchener and his pointing finger based on the drawing made by Alfred Leete. See my post 58. I am searching for a photograph or record of this on public display. In addition, I have no records of any other PRC (ignore the Montreal one) posters showing Kitchener with his finger pointing at us. If there were none then any reference to 'Kitchener with his finger pointing at me' must refer to one of the pictures in my post 58. POINTED FINGERS ONLY - Only Kitchener, none from Europe, none from the US or Canada. Geanville, thanks for your quotation Mart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funfly Posted 1 August , 2013 Author Share Posted 1 August , 2013 (edited) This is a quote presented to the committed, made by F.L. Goldthorpe who joined the 1/5th Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. He was in Lancaster on the 5th August 1914 and witnessed the mobilisation of the local Territorials.“..............The accusing finger of Kitchener stabbed at me at every bill-posting..........” The London Opinion with the first picture of Leet's Kitchener was printed on 5th. September 1915. Postcards a week later and 'our' poster probably middle to end of September. Mart Edited 1 August , 2013 by funfly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRANVILLE Posted 1 August , 2013 Share Posted 1 August , 2013 The London Opinion with the first picture of Leet's Kitchener was printed on 5th. September 1915. Postcards a week later and 'our' poster probably middle to end of September. Mart This is one of the things that puzzled me about the quotation I've posted in post #60 where the man quoted was apparently seeing these posters in Lancaster on the 5th August 1914. War had only just been declared and yet he is suggesting Kitchener's pointing finger was already doing its work on him? Most of the country had no idea it was about to go to war during that summer, so I find it hard to believe posters were already printed and posted up 24 hrs after war was declared on Germany? I always thought the poster came about in 1915 with Kitchener's call to enlist for the build-up to the big offensive on the Somme? David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funfly Posted 1 August , 2013 Author Share Posted 1 August , 2013 The first recruiting posters were text only. 'Our' posters shown in my post 50 - the one on the left was printed end September 1914 and the one on the right September 1914. As I'm sure you know, war was started on 4th. August 1914 Field drafted an initial advert headed: ‘Your King and Country Need You’ with an image of the royal coat of arms. It first appeared in newspapers on 5 August, 1914 including the Daily Mail, at a size eight inches deep across two of the seven columns at the top of page three. It sought men aged between eighteen and thirty. Adverts that ran a week later had changed the terms to ‘a period of three tears or until the war is concluded. Age of enlistment between nineteen and thirty.’ The copy ended with ‘God save the King’ at Kitchener’s insistence. None of the press advertisements was illustrated, apart from the royal crest, and they were managed separately from the PRC poster campaigns. Just twenty-four days after the initial call to arms in the newspapers, the government ran a new advertisement in the press, again with the royal crest. This time, the headline words were ‘Your King and Country need you’ and the following text of ‘Another 100,000 men wanted’. Mart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Indefatigable Posted 1 August , 2013 Share Posted 1 August , 2013 Have you seen the article that was published in History Today Volume 59 Issue 7 2009 entitled Poster Boy: Alfred Leete and written by Mark Bryant. It gives a potted history on Alfred Leete as well as the poster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonraker Posted 2 August , 2013 Share Posted 2 August , 2013 This is one of the things that puzzled me about the quotation I've posted in post #60 where the man quoted was apparently seeing these posters in Lancaster on the 5th August 1914... David Probably/possibly he mis-remembered. I've come across many references to all sorts of things in all sorts of subjects where mis-remembering is a very likely explanation for an anomaly. Moonraker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robigunner88 Posted 2 August , 2013 Share Posted 2 August , 2013 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10218932/Your-Country-Needs-You-The-myth-about-the-First-World-War-poster-that-never-existed.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRANVILLE Posted 2 August , 2013 Share Posted 2 August , 2013 http://www.telegraph...er-existed.html Well, well, well, and yet I'm convinced, years ago, I've seen photographs of Trafalgar Square with the posters on show? Here's a portion from Peter Simkins 1988 work: Kitcheners Army, the raising of the New Armies 1914-16. (page 122). Apart from these activities, the (PRC) committee’s main work lay in the production and distribution of pamphlets and posters. At the end of March 1915 it was estimated that the PRC had by then issued 20 million recruiting leaflets and some 2 million posters. In the First World War posters were employed as a medium of propaganda on a scale hitherto unknown, and their impact on the urban landscape was vast. Michael MacDonagh of The Times described the scene in London on 3rd January 1915: Posters appealing to recruits are to be seen on every hoarding, in most windows, in omnibuses, tramcars and commercial vans. The great base of Nelson’s Pillar is covered with them. Their number and variety are remarkable. Everywhere Lord Kitchener sternly points a monstrously big finger, exclaiming ‘I Want You.’ Another bill say: ‘Lord Kitchener wants another 100,000 men.’ (‘My word,’ remarked a lonely spinster according to a current joke, one would do me!’)... Alfred Leete’s famous design, which bore a portrait of a pointing Kitchener over a slogan ‘Your country needs you’, first appeared on the front cover of the magazine London Opinion on 5th September 1914. The following week, in answer to numerous requests for reproductions, the magazine offered post-card- sized copies at 1s 4d per hundred. The Parliamentary Recruiting Committee also obtained permission to use the design, with a slightly amended text which included, at Kitchener’s insistence, the words ‘God Save the King’. However, it was not until the end of September that the design began to be issued as a poster. In view of the fact that it became arguably the best know poster in history, it is perhaps churlish to note that its widespread circulation in various forms did not halt the decline in recruiting. (Are we to assume Michael MacDonagh of The Times was making it up?) Can I point out this last sentence in brackets is a question from me, not a quote from Peter Simkins book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ss002d6252 Posted 3 August , 2013 Share Posted 3 August , 2013 daily mail article on the posters http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2383977/Lord-Kitcheners-iconic-Your-country-needs-image-used-recruitment-posters-First-World-War.html Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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