Postcards from a Peace Mission: #OnThisDay 100 years ago – “Gwilym’s Diary” from the 1925 Welsh Churches Peace Appeal to America
Over the next 6 weeks from November 25th 2025 to January 7th 2026, marking #ChurchesPeaceAppeal100, @WCIA_Wales and @Cytun will be following #GwilymsDiary in real time: “what he might have tweeted” as his American Peace mission unfolded.
Gwilym Davies conveyed the Welsh Churches Peace Appeal personally from Cardiff to Detroit, Michigan in December 1925, presenting the memorial at the US Congress of the ‘Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America‘. He kept a diary of his trip, and on return wrote up “A Welsh Approach to the Churches of America,” recounting the experiences of his voyage – which we will be ‘bringing to life’ over coming weeks.
25 November 1925
100 years ago, on Wed 25 Nov 1925, a transatlantic liner called the ‘SS George Washington’ set sail from Southampton carrying a remarkable Peace Appeal from the Churches of Wales to America, conveyed by visionary Welsh peacebuilder the Rev Gwilym Davies.
“The choice of the George Washington was fortunate. It was in the Presidential Suite of this ocean liner that [WW1 US President] Woodrow Wilson came to Europe to attend the Paris Peace Conference.” Gwilym’s Diary, 25 Nov 1925
View Gwilym Davies’ Account of 1925 America
26 (Thur) and 29 (Sun) November 1925 – Transatlantic Peace
“On the second day out the passengers celebrated American Thanksgiving Day, and as the only Minister on board I was asked to take the Thanksgiving Service – using in the main the order of the American Episcopal Church. This led to a request that I preach at the service in the first class saloon the folllowing Sunday. a chance not to be missed of sowing the good seed [of peace] in mid ocean.”
3 (Wed) December 1925 – Arrival in New York and the Federal Council
“One of the happiest of Atlantic crossings came to an end in a blizzard as entered [New York] Harbour, intensely cold as we passed the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Slowly we threaded our way through a multitude of craft, towards the … lower end of Manhattan Island, and the city of New York.
To visit the Headquarters of the Federal Council of Churches is to see what America can do in inter-denominational organisation. Great Britain has nothing of the kind that approaches it in resources and range; it is the common ground for the social activities of 28 Protestant bodies with a membership of 20 millions; the laboratory in which the churches of America seek collective solutions to the common problems that none can solve alone.”
Forerunner of the present-day US NCC, The Federal Council had been founded in May 1908 in Philadelphia between 32 member denominations, and by the 1920s they had established headquarters in New York’s 105 East 22nd Street, the ‘United Charities Building‘ – today a national historic landmark.
- View 1923 Member Denominations of the US Federal Council of Churches
- Modern day US National Council of Churches
8 Dec (Monday) 1925 – 20th Century Limited to Detroit
As the ‘big week’ began, Gwilym Davies made the journey from New York to Detroit, from which later in his account he recounts conversations from the train. This route in the 1920s was one of the most iconic trains in history, the art deco wonder known as the ‘Twentieth Century Limited‘.
10 Dec (Wednesday) 1925 – Woodward Avenue Baptist Church, Detroit
The US Congress of Churches was hosted in Detroit, Michigan at the Woodward Avenue Baptist Church, dedicated in January 1887 but tragically lost to fire in June 1986 just months before its centenary, and
- History of Detroit City – Wikipedia
- Historic Detroit – postcards from 1920s and beyond
- Woodward Avenue Baptist Church history by Historic Detroit
10-11 Dec 1925 – Presentation of Wales Peace Memorial byb Rev Gwilym Davies
The churches memorial was formally presented in Detroit over 9-11 Dec 1925, to the Annual Congress of Churches in America; to mark this centenary, we will be hosting an online talk on Thur 11 Dec 2025. More info & tickets available via Eventbrite at: Faith for a Warless World
Presentation of Wales Peace Memorial took place at 8pm on the Wednesday evening (which would be early morning on the 9th Dec back in Wales)
An exhibition exploring the remarkable story of this 1920s peace campaign, with the original memorial appeal as its centrepiece, is available for loan to Welsh community and heritage groups over the year ahead, having been launched and hosted by @StDavidsCathedral over Oct-Dec 2025.
Find out more here about hosting the exhibition “Faith in a Warless World”.