Poster, 'Coal Shortage'

Conserving fuel supplies

This First World War poster was created by the British Board of Trade, Controller of Coal Mines Department, advocating conservation methods for the coal shortage in Britain. The text informs the viewer that engineers and superintendents should ensure measuring devices make accurate readings of coal consumption and associated measurements, firemen and stokers were to closely monitor firing methods and enginemen and others were to follow listed instructions to assist in economising coal.

British and American Posters in New Zealand

This poster is part of a collection of First World War posters sent to New Zealand as examples of British wartime propaganda. From 1917-1919, the Dominion Museum (now Te Papa) collected such war material with the help of the New Zealand High Commissioner in London and the Department of Defence.

The museum intended to collect and display such objects in a planned national war museum in Wellington which never eventuated. Instead, the museum toured over 100 war posters around New Zealand in the early 1920s in the context of increasing commemoration of the war during peacetime. For many, the posters illustrated important aspects of the war and the history of New Zealand's part in the war. This commemorative function was far removed from their original function to encourage wartime contribution.