The Welsh Women's Peace Petition: 390,296 Names for Peace

In 1923, 390,296 women across Wales put their names to an appeal for peace. Volunteers went from door to door, gathering signatures for a message addressed not to a government, but to the women of the United States. Their hope was that American women would press the United States to join the League of Nations and help replace war with international law.

The result was the Welsh Women’s Peace Petition, known in Welsh as Deiseb Heddwch Menywod Cymru. A Welsh delegation carried it across the Atlantic in an oak chest in 1924. A century later, the petition is back in Wales and all 390,296 names can be searched online. That new access makes this more than a story about an impressive number: it is a route into the homes, streets and communities behind one of Wales’s most ambitious peace campaigns.

What was the Welsh Women's Peace Petition?

The campaign grew from the determination to prevent another catastrophe after the First World War. The Dictionary of Welsh Biography records that the proposal developed through conferences at Llandrindod Wells and Aberystwyth in May 1923. Women proposed, seconded and supported an appeal that would connect women across Wales with women in America.

The appeal asked American women to use their influence in support of the United States joining the League of Nations. The League had been created after the war to encourage international cooperation and collective security. The United States never joined it, despite President Woodrow Wilson’s role in promoting the idea.

The wording was international, but the method was personal: woman to woman, household to household. The Welsh Centre for International Affairs summarises its principle as “LAW NOT WAR”. It was not a claim that peace had already been secured. It was an organised attempt to turn grief and anxiety into civic action.

How did they collect 390,296 signatures?

There was no online form and no national database. A small group of campaigners appointed local organisers, held meetings and relied on volunteers to visit homes. The surviving papers show how widely the effort spread. The National Library of Wales catalogue lists communities across industrial south Wales, rural counties, market towns and coastal settlements.

The figure 390,296 comes from the archive itself. It should not be rounded up into a different total for dramatic effect. The Library describes around 6,500 petition sheets, arranged in 33 boxes, with names and addresses from across Wales. Its current searchable site presents the same exact total.

A National Library account estimates that the signatories represented around 30 per cent of the female population. That comparison is useful for scale, although it does not mean 30 per cent of every age group or community signed.

How did the petition reach America?

Four women travelled with the petition: Annie Hughes Griffiths, Mary Ellis, Elined Prys and Gladys Thomas. The sheets were packed into a carved oak chest for the Atlantic crossing. They sailed on the Cedric and reached New York on 11 February 1924.

Annie Hughes Griffiths led the delegation. She was president of the Welsh National Council of the League of Nations Union and already had strong Welsh public and cultural connections. Mary Ellis was a school inspector, Elined Prys a social worker, and Gladys Thomas travelled as Annie’s companion.

In New York, more than 400 women attended a luncheon where the petition was presented to American women’s organisations. The delegates then travelled to Washington and met President Calvin Coolidge at the White House. Their main purpose, however, was broader than a single presidential meeting. They were building links with American women’s networks and asking those organisations to carry the appeal forward.

Did the peace petition succeed?

Not in its immediate policy aim. The United States did not join the League of Nations, and another world war followed. Saying that plainly does not make the campaign a failure. It helps us judge what the petition did and did not achieve without turning hope into a false victory.

The campaign organised almost 400,000 women around an international question, made Welsh voices visible in the United States and strengthened connections among peace organisations. The Welsh Centre for International Affairs links the visit with later cooperation among American women’s networks. The petition also preserved an unusually detailed record of women’s names and addresses from communities across Wales in 1923.

That wider Welsh peace tradition later found a national home in Cardiff’s Temple of Peace, which opened in 1938. The building did not cause or complete the petition campaign, but its archives preserve the work of the Welsh League of Nations Union and later peace organisations.

Why this story matters on International Day of Peace

The United Nations marks International Day of Peace on 21 September. The date is a useful reason to revisit the petition, but the Welsh campaign predates the UN observance by decades. It belongs first to the women and communities who organised it in 1923.

Its strongest lesson is practical rather than sentimental. Large public actions are made from thousands of small acts: hosting a meeting, carrying a sheet, explaining an idea at a doorway, signing a name and keeping a record. The searchable archive lets us move back from a striking total to those individual acts.

Try one name from your family or one street from your community. Whether you find a relative or a stranger, the record makes the scale of the campaign human again.