#OTD 103 years ago, over Whitsun Weekend culminating 25 May 1920, WCIA’s predecessor the Welsh League of Nations Union held their first public meeting in Llandrindod Wells (image); and #OTD 101 years on from Whitsun 1922, the organisation formally became came into existence as an independent body from the British League of Nations Union (LNU): with a mission no less than world peace.
The 1923 AGM in Aberystwyth also saw the launch of the Welsh Women’s Peace Appeal to America, marked this week by a Centenary Conference in Aberystwyth.
There have been a number of ‘hidden histories features‘ on the inspiring activities and key movers and shakers of Wales Peace movements of the interwar era. This feature takes a step back from the headline-catching campaigns of the WLNU, to look beneath the bonnet at the mechanics of the League’s operations in Wales: how it came into being, its organisational structure, the WLNU’s place within wider movements of the time, how League activities were organised, the people behind the scenes, bread-and-butter branch activism between the big campaigns, and a sense of the ‘timeline’ that joins together the League’s many achievements over the interwar era. So often, these can be viewed as the ‘boring bits’ less relevant to study questions or feature articles. But for any movement to ‘move’, like any vehicle it needs an engine, and fuel.
There can be little doubt that social justice after World War 1 fuelled the motivations of a generation of Welsh people to build a better world; and the Welsh League of Nations Union constructed an engine finely calibrated to the social context of the time to harness this energy and power a movement – the interwar generation’s very own ‘Justice League’.
View the full feature below: ‘Justice League’
