British historians invariably track the development of propaganda techniques and systems of censorship against exceptional media flashpoints of the early twentieth century such as the Great War. The First World War prompted further rapid developments in public relations. While Civil Servants began to develop ideas about the necessity of public relations, state use of 'propaganda' during the War had been a controversial intervention that cast a grim shadow across the postwar period. Collaborative international efforts at securing peace after the First World War, along with the experience of working in Ireland during partition, were imprinted on the strategic and research-driven conception of public relations developed by Sir Stephen Tallents and his collaborators. Initially prompted by the slump, the wider ethos of British public relations in the interwar period would directly inform the creation of postwar organisations such as UNESCO.