25th March 1926
Publisher and ad-man Sir Hedley Le Bas dies
The Guardian reported the death of Sir Hedley Le Bas, an advertising executive and director of the Caxton Publishing Company, who had met his end in a Reigate nursing home after never fully recovering from an operation. He had been ill since the previous Sunday.
Le Bas’ memorable slogan
Although his name is largely forgotten, one piece of his work has gone down in history: the phrase “Your Country Needs You”, from which Britain hung the whole of its First World War recruitment drive before introducing conscription in 1916. The poster had been through several variations during its development, and the final layout was put together by Alfred Leete. It first appeared on the cover of London Opinion magazine on 5 September 1914, before being spun off as a stand-alone poster.
Bas had been born in Jersey on 19 May 1868 and joined the 15th Hussars aged 18, following which he moved to Manchester and, aged 31, founded the Caxton Publishing Company and Caxton Advertising Agency.
By the outbreak of war, Bas was already a golfing buddy of the Secretary of State for War, JEB Seely, so it was no great surprise that he should be asked to work on an advertising campaign to increase recruitment. The most successful poster that he and his team worked on was “Your Country Needs You”, below a picture of Lord Kitchener, who was pointing out of the picture, directly towards the viewer.
In the second year of the war, they followed up with a more sentimental poster, designed to shame those who had not yet volunteered. “Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?” was the slogan this time, showing a pensive man sitting in an armchair with his daughter on his lap. This received criticism in some quarters, with Robert Smillie, co-founder of the Scottish Labour Party, suggesting that the man’s reply should have been “I tried to stop the bloody thing, my child”.
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Other events that occured in March
Mystery man’s fatal fall at Fort Regent
- Mystery surrounded the death of John Edward Redden in 1899, who had died shortly after falling on steps at Fort Regent.
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Newspapers demand corporal punishment
- Newspapers demanded that a French labourer to be given corporal punishment for attacking a woman and leaving her for dead in St Martin.
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Nurse Tracy Burns is killed at First Tower
- Tracy Burns was killed on 14 March. Two days later, a man was arrested and charged with murder, robbery and attempted rape of the 35-year-old.
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Subversive designer Edmund Blampied is born
- Edmund Blampied was an accomplished artist working in several different media. He designer banknotes with hidden messages.
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