EMPIRE PUBLICITY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20764, 9 July 1929, Page 6

EMPIRE PUBLICITY.

THE VALUE OF POSTERS. A WOMAN PIONEER. A voluntary agent, doing for her own accord and for the pleasure ip gives to herself and others with whom she may come in contact, work which should have been done long ago by the Government Publicity Departments of the Empire, Miss M. Winifred Guy arrived in Dunedin yesterday on the last stage of a New Zealand tour extending over the past 10 months. She carries with her a complete set of posters illustrative of life and industry in every country of the world, which represent eight years’ effort on the part of the collector. Miss Guy’s work originated in 1921, when she was teaching geography in a London boys' grammar school. She had started collecting photographs of other countries, and among the first objects in her collection were some views of Dunedin, prominent among which was a photograph of the Otago -Boys’ High School. With these pictures she illustrated her geography lessons, and from this small beginning her collection grew till it covered the whole of New Zealand, then Australia, the British Em» pire, and, finally, the world. By this time, it was not only her geography class which was interested in Miss Guy’s collection. Returning from a holiday' trip to the Continent with a fresh series of pictures, she was asked to give a public exhibition of her collection. _ At this stage she realised the superiority of posters as an educational factor and she gave increased attention to collecting posters illustrative of other countries. Following on a series of public exhibitions throughout England; Miss Guy set out in December, 1926, upon an extended tour of the British Empire in a search for further,material. She arrived in Sydney early in 1927, and her work started with an exhibition given under the auspices of the Victoria League and the E->yal Colonial Institute in Farmer’s Building, Sydney, After six weeks in Sydney she went to Queensland, where she say conditions out of the reach of the ordinary tourist, penetrating into the hinterland as far as the railways could reach. Not the least exciting of her experiences was a visit to the Great Barrier reef. Returning to New South Wales, Miss Guy spent' several days in the Broken Hill mines, taking photographs for her collection, and finally went to Port Pirie, where she saw the final treatment of the ore' which was mined at Broken Hill. In August of last year she landed in Wellington, and has spent the last 10 months in a thorough-going tour of this Dominion, extending from the Maori settlements on the Kaipara River (North Auckland) to the Southern Alps and Otago. Dunedin is. the last centre to be visited by Miss Guy. While here she intends to give exhibitions of. posters collected from other countries, and to deliver lectures under the auspices of educational bodies. .Miss Guy has spent the three years since her departure from England iu massing an up-to-date assortment of posters and information dealing with the places she has visited, upon which she will base a lecture tour of England in the interests of Empire publicity.