World War One Recruiting Posters

After the First World War broke out in the summer of 1914, many thousands of British men volunteered for military service.  Within months it became clear that recruiting enough volunteers to win the war was a huge task.

The Parliamentary Recruiting Committee was put in charge of boosting numbers of volunteers.  It commissioned posters from the best graphic artists of the day.  They were put up in as many public places as possible, to attract attention and boost recruitment. Those on display here were probably displayed in Bath Library, which used to be in this building.  Over 3,000 men from Bath joined up voluntarily – some as a result of seeing the actual posters that you can see on display here. 

The recruiting posters were very successful propaganda, appealing to people’s patriotism and their sense of duty to king and empire.  They played on the emotions, making those who saw the posters feel that their personal contribution to the war effort was vital.

Of the 11,000 men from Bath who fought in World War One, around 1,000 were killed.  These were just a tiny proportion of the millions who died during the Great War.