Welcome to the first in a series of posts about the Swords into Ploughshares project at LSE Library. This is a new project focussing on the archives of two peace organisations held by the Library, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, British section (WILPF) and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, London Union (FOR). Over the next year I will be cataloguing the papers held in both archives and promoting their contents in a variety of ways, this has been made possible by a generous grant from the National Cataloguing Grants Programme for Archives fund.
Both organisations have their origins in the outbreak of the First World War and as next year marks the centenary of the start of the war now is the prime time to catalogue the collections and reveal their stories. WILPF was formed in 1915 when over a 1000 women representing European and North American countries met in The Hague to protest against the war raging across Europe. Today WILPF has active members across the world who share a vision for peace by non-violent means and promote justice for all.
Delegates of the first WILPF meeting in The Hague, 1915
LSE Library received the first deposit of WILPF papers in 1973 and the organisation has continued to add to the records, the most recent deposit being made in 2012. In 2009 WILPF material which had been deposited at The Women’s Library was transferred to LSE re-uniting the archive. A brief summary of the collection can be found here, once the archive has been fully catalogued this entry will be replaced with the completed archive catalogue.
FOR has its roots in August 1914 when Henry Hodgkin (a British Quaker) and Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze (a German Lutheran) attended a Christian pacifist conference in Germany, on bidding farewell at Cologne train station and seeing war between their countries as inevitable they pledged that “We are one in Christ and can never be at war.” On returning to Britain Hodgkin spread the message to Christian groups across the country and the Fellowship of Reconciliation was formed with active branches across the nation.
Minutes of the first meeting of FOR, London Union, 1916
The FOR records were deposited in 1984 and again more have been added over time, allowing researchers greater access to papers documenting the history of the organisation. A collection description can be found here, this will also be updated once cataloguing is completed. LSE Library also holds the records of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, England – these have already been catalogued and a full description of its contents can be found via the LSE Archives Catalogue.
Over the coming months I will be focussing on the WILPF archive and providing regular updates on how I am getting on and what exciting material I find. In the New Year I will turn my attention to FOR and share the tales that emerge from that archive collection with you.
About Carys Lewis
Carys Lewis is the Swords into Ploughshares Project Archivist, responsible for cataloguing and promoting the archives of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and the Fellowship of Reconciliation: London Union.
