Holgate Poster Collection
Image: IWM (Art.IWM PST 8297)
Holgate Poster Collection
Date 1939 – 1945
A collection of Second World War government posters
Who was Holgate?
Welbury Wilkinson Holgate was born in 1901 in Thornton-in-Craven. After the death of his mother in 1907, his father started a confectioner’s business in Earby and by the 1930s, Holgate and his three sisters were running the shop.
Alongside running a successful confectioner’s business, Holgate and his sisters were keen amateur archaeologists, conducting excavations in the local area, including at Hare Hill Ring Cairn. They carefully recorded their discoveries and displayed their finds in a museum above the shop. The displays became well known in the local area and people began to send objects from all around the world for their museum.
W.W. Holgate in Fire Guard uniform
Image: IWM (Art.IWM PST 2832)
What is in the collection?
During the Second World War, the Ministry of Information produced thousands of posters concerning a huge variety of topics. These were designed to inform people about government programmes and new regulations put into place to help the war effort. The posters were sent across the country to be displayed in public buildings and shop windows.
Holgate served in the Civil Defence Unit Fire Brigade during the Second World War, and his sister Martha was the representative for local retailers on the Earby Information Committee. She organised the posters to be displayed in their shop, and after a new one arrived, the old one would be carefully preserved for their museum.
There are over 500 posters in the collection covering a wide range of topics including recruitment into civilian organisations such as the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) and Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS), what to do during a blackout, growing your own fruit and veg, and posters advertising local events and war savings drives.
How did the posters come to Craven Museum?
Holgate’s interest in archaeology and geology lead to him becoming chairman of the Craven Naturalists and Scientific Association, one of the groups that had helped to found Craven Museum. He was involved with the museum for many years and played a big part in Craven Museum’s re-design in 1957.
Holgate donated the collection of posters to Craven Museum in 1962, alongside a collection of other items relating to the Home Front during the Second World War. Following his death in 1969, the remainder of the family’s archaeological, geological and ephemera collections were formally accessioned into the museum.
Craven Museum holds thousands of objects donated by Holgate across his different collections. The collection of war posters gives fascinating insight into what topics Holgate and his sisters felt were most relevant to their local community in Earby. It also provides us with a selection of items that are important to social history and graphic design.
Images on this page are of poster designs in the Holgate Poster Collection and are reproduced by permission of the Imperial War Museum.
Image: IWM (Art.IWM PST 16992)
