Poster Workshop

A document authored by SDS boss Detective Chief Inspector HN325 Conrad Dixon HN325 Conrad Dixon Conrad Hepworth Dixon was born on 27 January 1927 in Gillingham, Kent. He joined Special Branch in 1950 and became the first senior officer of the SDS in 1968. He worked on other high profiles cases after leaving the SDS, before retiring in 1973. He died in 1999. Full page: HN325 Conrad Dixon , reflecting on the first four months of the SDS, lists Sinclair’s responsibility as reporting on the Poster Workshop. Poster Workshop The Poster Workshop, founded in 1968 in Camden, London, was a hub of radical political art. Inspired by the events of May 1968 in Paris, the Poster Workshop contributed to a variety of social movements through the creation of hand-printed political posters. In 1968, SDS officer HN332 Cameron Sinclair was assigned to spy on it.  This was a printing collective based in Camden, London that created publicity material for campaigners.

There are a few mentions of the Poster Workshop in the Inquiry disclosure but only in reports on other groups, suggesting the group was not specifically targeted. 

The posters that the collective produced intersected with many of the groups that were spied upon, for instance promoting the occupation of London School of Economics on October 27 1968. The Poster Workshop, Occupied, LSE, 25-27 October, The Poster Workshop, 1968.  

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For that reason, monitoring the Poster Workshop’s premises would have been helpful to the SDS, although aside from Dixon stating that Sinclair had responsibility for monitoring the collective, there is no other evidence that it was a major target for the SDS, see Penetration of Extremist Groups. 'Penetration of Extremist Groups', Dixon on SDS achievements and future structure and strategy,, 26 Nov 1968, Metropolitan Police Special Branch, MPS-0724119.View Document

Sources:  The Poster Workshop.