Ministry of Information (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Information (MOI), headed by the Minister of Information, was a United Kingdom government department created briefly at the end of World War I and again during World War II. Located in Senate House at the University of London during World War II, it was the central government department responsible for publicity and propaganda.

First World War

In the Great War, several different agencies had been responsible for propaganda, except for a brief period when there had been a Department of Information (1917) and a Ministry of Information (1918).

Ministers of Information 1918-1919

• Lord Beaverbrook (10 February 1918 - 4 November 1918)
• Lord Downham (4 November 1918 - 10 January 1919)

Second World War

The department's functions were threefold: news and press censorship; home publicity; and overseas publicity in Allied and neutral countries. Planning for such an organisation, largely conducted in secret, had started in October 1935 under the auspices of the Committee for Imperial Defence. While the government was publicly admitting the inevitability of war, propaganda was still tainted by the experience of the First World War, when several different bodies had been responsible for propaganda and information. Planning for the new MOI was largely organised by volunteers drawn from a wide range of government departments, public bodies and specialist outside organisations.

In the 1930s communications...
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