Safety First

Safety campaigns touch a nerve in all of us. Over the years, these posters, slogans and TV adverts have imprinted themselves on our collective memory, evoking nostalgia for childhood and a bygone Britain. In 2011, RoSPA made a wonderful discovery: a superb ‘missing’ archive of historical safety posters dating from the 1930s to 1970s.

Clever, beautifully designed, often amusing, always packing a punch – these posters not only showcase the talented designers of the time, but also reflect the momentous changes that swept 20th-century Britain, revealing our social and industrial history from a unique new angle.