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Introduction
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The Arrival of Picture Politics
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Irishmen!
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After the War
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The Workers Burden
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The Only Hope is Tariff Reform
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The Poster Elections of 1910
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The Glutton
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Our Old Nobility
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The Age of the Cartoonist
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Baiting the ‘Dear Food’ Hook
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Don't Try the Impossible
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Mother Vote Labour
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After 1928 - The Emergence of new voters and Presidential Politics
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Labour Stands For All Who Work
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Safety First
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Men and Women Workers, Your Chance at Last
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THE NEW VOTER
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General Manager Wanted
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Fair Play For Women
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Gender Stereotypes
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Symbolism when pictures do the talking
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1950-1979: More Photos, Less Drawing, Fewer Words
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After 1979: Labour Isn’t Working and its Aftermath
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Do Posters Work?
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Exhibition Quiz
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What have you learned?
Irishmen!
In 1900 the election issue of the day was the ongoing Boer War. In this poster the Conservative party candidates Winston Churchill and Charles Crisp appeal to the Irish vote of Oldham. The poster is typical of a type from the first half of the 20th century. It is cheaply printed on poor quality paper. Because of the low quality paper and ephemeral nature of posters few of these early letter-press posters survive.
After the War
James Ramsay MacDonald then secretary of the Labour Representation Committee ordered this poster in 1904. On your right you can see the letter that he sent to the printers, requesting the image. The similarities between MacDonald’s order and the final poster are striking. During the 1910s senior Labour figures decided exactly what posters they wanted and had them produced. This differed from the Liberal and Conservative parties, who generally relied on the famous cartoonists and poster artists they employed to think up their posters.
The Workers Burden
Two rival organisations issued this and the poster on its left in late 1909. A Liberal pressure group, the Budget League produced the example above, while the Liberal group the Budget Protest League was responsible for the other. The Times newspaper stated that The Worker’s Burden was a “reply” to the Poor Man’s Burden. Both posters use the same symbols, but the words change the meaning. In Edwardian Britain (1901-1910), posters were not static deliverers of information. They contested the politics of the street. Poster artists relied on the political education of the electorate to grasp these complex conversations.
The Only Hope is Tariff Reform
Tariff Reform refers to the taxing of imports into Britain. It was a major issue during the Edwardian period (1901-1910). The artist of this poster has used a number of symbols to emphasise the benefits of Tariff Reform. The tug of Tariff Reform is pulling the British Constitution off the rocks of socialism in the turbulent seas of Free Trade. The poster represents Britain twice. Its history as a sea fairing nation is evident in the ship. British industrial might is in the background as the sun rises over the smoking chimneys. As in many posters of the period the meaning was created through the combination of slogan and labelled image.
The Glutton
In 1910 Liberal and their allied Budget League posters attacked members of the House of Lords. As British Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George made regular reference in his speeches to the idle Lords. The posters regularly showed the Lords to be lazy unwilling to remove their hands from their pockets to help. It was the vice of greed, however, upon which opposition billboards focussed their most virulent attacks. Here the expertly drawn piggy eyes and red face of the milk stealer conveys the image of a figure that was full but still demanded more.
Our Old Nobility
Baiting the ‘Dear Food’ Hook
The figure in this poster is Joseph Chamberlain. Francis Carruthers Gould, the artist made sure that viewers understood this by depicting him with his distinctive monocle. Chamberlain was in favour of Tariff Reform, and believed that if imports were taxed there would be more employment and higher wages. Carruthers Gould argues, that is merely to attract you, the viewer, and the real outcome is higher prices. The fishing apparatus, the creel and the bait can, are labelled with his true motifs, protection and bait. Fishing was a popular metaphor in posters. The idea that parties were tricking voters into acting a certain way, was highly relevant during election periods.
Don't Try the Impossible
In this poster the artist John Hassall suggests that the electors should not support the Liberals who were crippled by trying to accommodate the wishes of their rich capitalist members and the Labour party. The Liberal Prime Minister H.H. Asquith is in the middle, confused by the two competing sides. The Conservatives would have approved design from a sketch, probably the one on the right. Hassall would then have produced the finished poster, which he then sent to the printers. He completed this example on the 8th October and charged £25.00 for the design.
Mother Vote Labour
Women could first vote in parliamentary elections 1918. This poster, designed by Gerald Spencer Pryse, is Labour’s first attempt to attract these new voters. During the period, Labour Party support came primarily from industrial areas, emphasised by the factory in the background. The basis of the poster’s appeal is that women should vote Labour on behalf of their children. Labour reissued this poster several times throughout the inter-war period, including in 1929, the first election men and women voted on equal terms.
Labour Stands For All Who Work
During the 1920s and the 1930s Labour expanded their appeal from their core urban, working class, trade union support and began seeking the votes of the middle class. The party used posters to when attempting this. The people in this poster are dressed in the clothes of managerial or secretarial rather than industrial workers. Drawn by Gerald Spencer Pryse, this poster like the one on the right, is one of the few examples that acknowledges many women were in paid employment.
Courtesy of the People's History Museum
Safety First
The idea of trust is central to this poster. Clearly it says so at the bottom, but even if it did not the image of Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin is full of trustworthy symbols. Upright, solid, formal it is every inch the image of inter-war leadership. The most important signal of the Baldwin’s trust, however, is his gaze. Plato suggested “the eyes are the windows to the soul”. Baldwin’s unwavering stare signifies that he is not unnerved by the task of leadership. This poster ultimately suggests that Baldwin has nothing to hide.
Courtesy of the Bodleian Library, Oxford
Men and Women Workers, Your Chance at Last
This poster is rare in that it recognised that women might choose to vote as something other than mothers or consumers. The women in the centre stares at the viewer in a direct personal appeal. As Men and women stream out of the closed works towards the polling booth. There the poster urges, they should vote for Labour.
Courtesy of the People's History Museum
THE NEW VOTER
This Labour poster from 1929 shows Liberal leader David Lloyd George and Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin as old- fashioned. Their top hats and morning coats contrast sharply with Ramsay MacDonald’s, lounge suit and homburg, very much the modern man. Lloyd George’s macabre wink hinted at his reputation as a serial philanderer.
It was a poster demonstrating the fluidity of visual symbols. In Conservative posters Baldwin’s pipe was a reassuring sign of geniality; here, it represented an out of touch old man.
General Manager Wanted
In this poster the Labour leader James Ramsay MacDonald applies to John Bull for the job of Prime Minister. Bull has already rejected the application of the Conservative and Liberal leaders Stanley Baldwin and David Lloyd George. Instead, he decides on Ramsay MacDonald after reading the Labour manifesto ‘Labour and the Nation’. Here John Bull represents the ability of the British to make the correct rational decision. John Bull featured infrequently in Labour posters. More usually he appeared in Conservative posters and commercial advertising as a symbol for British made goods.
Courtesy of the People's History Museum
Fair Play For Women
If this catalogue does not render, open it in a new tab.
Open catalogue in a new tabPicturing Politics - The British Political Poster
Snicket
Political parties have used posters to speak to the people during
elections of the 20th and 21st centuries. In some form, posters
have survived despite the birth of radio, television, and the internet.
As the events of elections fade from our collective memory posters
have remained a lasting visual inheritance. This exhibition explores that
legacy. Starting with late Victorian examples it ends with posters from the
2010 election.
Posters here tell us that what seems politically ‘new’ is not. That our understanding of politics is dependent on a series of constantly evolving set of symbols. And that posters are the point where are and politics and meet.
The Arrival of Picture Politics
In the latter half of the 19th century technological
development enabled the printing of large colour posters. Political parties
often commissioned leading cartoonists to produce their posters. Consequently,
early picture posters looked very like contemporary cartoons. Like all political
cartoons they were frequently deeply cutting about rival parties.
Despite the spread of picture posters many were just text, crude and locally produced. Just as they had been throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
Notting Hill Gate Metropolitan Railway interior, 1919. Courtesy London Transport Museum
Irishmen! Party: Conservative Election: 1900 (Conservative victory)
After the War Party: Labour Representation Committee (became the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1906) Election: Possibly used in the election of 1906 (Liberal victory)
The Worker’s Burden Party: Budget League (supported the Liberals) Election: January 1910 (Liberal Victory)
Party: Conservative Election: 1906? (Liberal Victory)
The Poster Elections of 1910
There were two elections in 1910, in January and December. There were probably more posters in these elections than any before or since. During the January election alone posters covered over two million square feet of wall space in London.
Poster designers drew on a rich language of symbols to translate arguments into pictures. Voters were often depicted as children, perhaps to suggest their vulnerability. A loaf of bread symbolised free trade. The shopping basket represented the price of household goods. Top hats were the sign of wealth or privilege. Each of these two posters contain one or all of these symbols.
During the Edwardian period, the worlds of political cartoons and posters often overlapped, with the same artists working across newspapers, commercial advertising, and party campaigns.
Francis Carruthers Gould, a Liberal supporter, produced cartoons for the Westminster Gazette that were turned into posters for the Liberal Party (UK) in the 1906 United Kingdom general election. Illustrator John Hassall, known for commercial posters for brands like Colman's and Kodak, also designed campaign posters for the Conservative Party (UK). Similarly, Spencer Pryse created posters for the Labour Party. All believed that powerful images could communicate political ideas more effectively than words.
Image courtesy of the Aireborough Historical Society
Party: Budget League (supported the Liberals) Election: January 1910 (Liberal victory)
Party: The Budget League (supported the Liberals) Election: January 1910 (Liberal victory)
The Age of the Cartoonist
During the Edwardian period, the worlds of political cartoons and posters often overlapped, with the same artists working across newspapers, commercial advertising, and party campaigns. Francis Carruthers Gould, a Liberal supporter, produced cartoons for the Westminster Gazette that were turned into posters for the Liberal Party (UK) in the 1906 United Kingdom general election. Illustrator John Hassall, known for commercial posters for brands like Colman's and Kodak, also designed campaign posters for the Conservative Party (UK). Similarly, Spencer Pryse created posters for the Labour Party. All believed that powerful images could communicate political ideas more effectively than words.
Party: Liberal Election: 1906 (Liberal victory)
John Hassall, famous for advertising and cartoons, turns his hand to political posters.
Gerald Spencer Pryse's appeal to mothers. Women could vote for the first time in the 1918 General Election.
After 1928 - The Emergence of new voters and Presidential Politics
The British media often criticise political parties for
presenting their leaders like presidents. In 1997 commentators spoke of
“President Blair”, similar claims were made about David Cameron in 2010, and emergent
political parties are often focussed on the leader.
The personalisation of politics is not new. Since the 1920s
parties have used posters to promote their leaders. Parties relied on trusted
and charismatic leaders to win support, partly because building loyalty to
political parties themselves was more difficult. Posters of the 1920s typically
portrayed leaders as upright, trustworthy and statesmanlike. Over time these
images became more informal, reflecting the increasingly relaxed style of
British politics during the 20th century.
Party: Labour Election: Perhaps 1931 (National Government victory)
Safety First Party: Conservatives Election: 1929 (Labour victory)
Men and Women Workers, Your Chance at Last Party: Labour Election: 1929 (Labour victory)
Labour leader James Ramsay MacDonald appeals to new voters in the 1929 election.
General Manager Wanted Party: Labour Election: 1929 (Labour Victory)
An appeal to shoppers, this elegantly dressed women was the very image of modernity in 1929.
Gender Stereotypes
The extension of the vote also influenced poster design. After equal voting rights were introduced in 1928, women could vote on the same terms as men, and parties increasingly used posters to appeal to this new, younger female electorate. Women had appeared in posters before, but after 1928 they featured more prominently
During the late 1920s and 1930s Labour produced the first posters which appealed to the millions of women in paid employment. But this was something of an anomaly. After World War II posters reverted to traditional stereotypes despite the millions of women still in work following the war.
The failure to acknowledge women’s role as contributors to Britain’s workforce suggests that parties believed that women would vote as wives and mothers. And potentially that posters depicted not how women were but how parties wanted them to be.
Symbolism when pictures do the talking
We immediately recognise brand logos such as Nike and Apple because they have become shorthand for the values of those companies. Political posters have also long used symbols to communicate powerful messages. The sun represents hope and new beginnings, making it a natural metaphor for elections that promise a brighter future; the shopping basket represents the cost of living; and even the pipe became a visual representation of a Prime Minister’s reliability and thoughtfulness. The use of such symbols is a reminder that posters are a form of advertising, designed to persuade people who may only see them briefly in passing.
1950-1979: More Photos, Less Drawing, Fewer Words
By 1950 the tradition of cartoonists and artists drawing posters had largely disappeared. Detailed artwork was largely replaced by a more graphic style.
A standard format developed. A bold image in the centre, accompanied by a pithy slogan. Photographic posters became the norm, rather than the exception.
Furthermore during this period posters began to attack the opposition less and concentrate on their own parties and leaders.
After 1979: Labour Isn’t Working and its Aftermath
Since 1979 the media has judged all posters against the Conservatives’ example Labour Isn’t Working. During the 1980s and 1990s the advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi produced several high impact designs for the party.
These included Labour’s Double Whammy and Labour’s Tax Bombshell. Labour also developed greater skill in political advertising during this period.
Just as technology was becoming more advanced, the traditional satirical attacking poster had a renaissance.
Do Posters Work?
Although they have been used in every election of the 20th century, what affect posters actually have is hotly debated. A study in 2001 claimed posters made no impact on voters choices.
It certainly seems unlikely that after seeing a poster on the street voters immediately convert to a particular party. Have you?
More likely posters convince those already wavering, but who are not quite sure. They might even demonstrate to decided voters that their party of choice is doing all it can to win. In recent elections parties have used poster launches to generate photo opportunities and in this role they have been an undoubted success.
In all probability posters work on some people some of the time.
Exhibition Quiz:
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