Frank Newbould
Prolific poster designer, whose clients included
the underground, mainline railway and shipping
companies, Frank Newbould, attended Bradford
College of Art circa 1905 to 1908. He joined the
War Office in 1942, and designed the series of
posters with the slogan Your Britain: fight for it
now.
During 1923 and 1947, before the days
of television advertising, four big railway
companies were competing for passengers by
developing their own distinctive style of railway
poster. Some of the finest artists of the time
were commissioned, setting new standards
for railway art. From seaside resorts, beautiful
landscapes, ships, hotels, bathing beauties to
government and war office propaganda, the
railway poster was at its peak.
Frank Newbould was born in Bradford on 24th
September 24 1887. Studying at Bradford
College of Art, Frank was soon known as a
black and white illustrator and poster artist. In
1909 a Frank Parkinson Newbould designed
an advertisement for Vimant gas mantles of
Bradford, many believe this was the work of
Frank Newbould.
While there is no record of First World War
posters by Newbould, in 1919 he did design
The Call of the East, a recruiting poster for
the RAF. Between the wars he designed many
posters, particularly for the Railways.
Frank Newbould was highly influenced by
stylized work of the Beggarstaff Brothers
who were in fact the brothers-in-law James
Pryde and William Nicholson. (They adopted
the name Beggarstaffs to distinguish their
commercial work from their work as painters.)
Newbould’s stylized posters used flat bright
colour, with a limited palette and silhouette
shapes and some used humour to entice
the viewer. Newbould won a silver and
bronze medal for poster design in the South
Kensington National Competition, and also
achieved a first-class honours for design from
Camberwell School of Art. In the early years of
the Second World War, Newbould designed a
recruiting poster for the Auxiliary Fire Service. In
1942 Newbould joined the War Office where he
produced eleven posters, including four for the Your Britain, Fight for it Now, in the tradition of This England, the peacetime English scene, for
which he had been famous with his LNER travel
posters. In 1943 he designed posters for the
Make Your Money Provide the Driving Power for the GPO.