Poppy Day turns 85

Poppy Day turns 85

This year marks the 85th anniversary of New Zealand's most iconic fundraising campaign – the annual Poppy Day Appeal.

The link between poppies and war goes back to the beginning of the 19th century, when poppies were the first plant to appear above soldiers' graves in Flanders following the Napoleonic Wars.

A century later Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian Medical Officer serving in Belgium during the First World War, wrote a poem that captured the world's imagination when it was published in Punch in 1915. It begins:

In Flanders field the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row

One person deeply affected by the poem was Moina Michael, a YMCA canteen worker in New York. Michael began to wear an artificial poppy in the remembrance of war dead, and started a campaign to have the poppy symbol officially recognised. In 1920 the American Legion accepted the poppy symbol at its annual conference.

At the conference was a French woman, Madame E. Guérin, who saw the opportunity for widows and orphans in the devastated areas of Northern France to earn money by manufacturing artificial poppies that could be sold by veterans' organisations overseas.

In late 1921 the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association (RSA) placed an order for 350,000 small and 16,000 large silk poppies with Madame Guérin's French Children's League. On the first poppy day, 24 April 1922, volunteers sold almost all the poppies, raising a total of £13,166. Of this, £3,695 was donated to the French Children's League and the remainder used by the RSA to assist unemployed returned New Zealand soldiers and their families.

New Zealand is unique in holding Poppy Day in April, rather on the now-traditional Armistice Day (11 November). The reason behind this is a quirk of history. The ship transporting the French poppies to New Zealand in 1921 arrived too late for the Armistice Day deadline. The RSA decided to wait until 24 April 1922, so they could successfully publicise the campaign.

Poppy Day history – RSA website

New Zealanders at war showcase - Matapihi website

Permission of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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