1925 Welsh Churches Peace Appeal to America - WLNU Memorial Campaign for League of Nations
The 1925 Welsh Churches Peace Appeal to America was a Memorial Petition signed by leaders of religion in Wales, presented to the Federal Council of Churches in America at their annual gathering in Detroit in December 1925. Supported by congregations Wales-wide, the Appeal called for US churches' support in advocating for America to join and lead the League of Nations in the aftermath of WW1, to prevent outbreak of further global conflicts.
This collection contains an account of the campaign by Rev Gwilym Davies, Hon Director of the Welsh League of Nations Union (who presented the memorial in Detroit), as well as correpsondence and the 22 original letters submitted by signatories (many containing drafts of the declaration text itself), from which their autographs were transposed onto the printed memorial - the copy of which can be viewed today among the collections and displays at Wales' Temple of Peace and Health in Cardiff, under the care of WCIA (the Welsh Centre for International Affairs).
NB - some archives are marked ‘private - not for publication’. The instruction relates to the period over Autumn 1925 whilst the Appeal was being finalised (like an embargo on a contemporary Press Release). This was to prevent correspondence being used in isolation, or taken out of context of the WLNU’s Campaign in the lead up to the Dec 1925 presentation of the Memorial in America - and to maximise publicity surroundig events in Detroit. The digitised copies can now be viewed to illustrate the process of creating the memorial, and of cooperation between denominational leaders in Wales in pursuit of peace.
