War must be renounced as well as Denounced.

Item type

Poster and sandwich board

Date

1937

Description

Poster board dating from 1937, carried in Peace Pledge Union marches. In October 1934 Canon Dick Sheppard, an Anglican priest and pacifist, wrote to the press, calling on men to send him postcards declaring their rejection of war. In the mid-1930s pacifism was growing in popularity and within a year Sheppard had received 80,000 postcards. The size of the response inspired him to try and give their movement a more formal structure. Consequently, in 1936 he set up the Peace Pledge Union (PPU). Those joining the new organisation were asked to sign a pledge declaring “I renounce war and will never support or sanction another.” The theory was that if enough agreed, no government would be able to raise an army, war could never be national policy and peaceful alternatives would have to be found. Supported by such famous writers as Siegfried Sassoon and Aldous Huxley, the PPU had 133,000 members by November 1937. The musuem has two poster boards carried in demonstrations in that year – this is one of them.

Image

DSCF9074.j

Item type: Poster and sandwich board
Date: 1937

Description

Poster explaining what a Nuclear Free Zone is in different langauges, published by Manchester City Council. On 5th November 1980 Manchester City Council became the first local authority in Britain to declare itself a ‘Nuclear Free Zone’. The Council was against the siting, production and transport of nuclear material in the area for which it was responsible. This was of real concern to the people of Manchester as several nuclear sites such as Sellafield in Cumbria and the Capenhurst uranium enrichment plant in Cheshire, were nearby. Manchester asked the government to “refrain from manufacture or positioning of any nuclear weapons in the boundaries of our city” and began to promote peaceful alternatives to nuclear weapons. Leaflets and posters such as this one were produced in five languages. The anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was marked by the laying of wreaths and friendships were formed with many world cities, including Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and Cordoba. Manchester’s example was followed by many other local authorities and as of 1995 there were over 150 Nuclear Free Zones across England, Wales and Scotland.