Welsh Journals

'LAW, NOTWAR- HEDD NID CLEDD':WOMEN AND THE PEACE MOVEMENT IN NORTH WALES, 1926-19451 ON 27 May 1926, 2,000 people, mainly women, gathered in the market square at Penygroes, Caernarfonshire, to give their support to the North Wales Peacemakers' Pilgrimage. This event marked the begin- ning of a journey to Chester which would take five days to complete. They covered 150 miles in that time, from Nefyn, Pwllheli, Criccieth to Pen-y-groes, Groeslon, Caernarfon, Portdinorwic and Bangor; then to Llanfairfechan, Penmaenmawr, Conwy and Colwyn Bay; then Rhyl, Prestatyn, Holywell and Llangollen, to Chester. Along the main route, fifteen meetings and sixteen processions were organized as well as many others on side-routes. The women who marched carried blue flags and in their number were representatives from over fifty towns and villages across north Wales. Their purpose was to 'educate and organise the public opinion of this country in support of the idea that nations do not find their security in arms, but by agreeing to refer all their disputes to arbitration or conciliation'.2 On 19 June, twenty-eight of the North Wales Pilgrims joined 10,000 other women from other parts of Britain for a demonstration in Hyde Park under the banner, 'Law not War'. Representatives from twenty-eight women's organiza- tions, including the International League for Peace and Freedom and the National Council of Women, had organized the event and it had been a resounding success. In north Wales, the Peacemakers' Pilgrimage was organized by a small group of women who had first met in Bangor in April 1926. This article is concerned with their activities in the inter-war years when a 1 I am grateful to Neil Evans for his valuable comments on an earlier draft of this article. 2UCNW, Bangor MSS, 26138-26185, North Wales Women's Peace Council (1926-43): Papers of Mrs Gwladys Thoday. See also UCNW, Bangor MSS,.37223 (Scrap-book, NWWPC).