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The story it tells is a glorious one: how a century ago a determined band of campaigners trailed door to door persuading a third of all Welsh women to sign a petition calling for world peace and delivered it to the US.
But the idea of a new exhibition at the National Library of Wales is not just to remember an historical event but, in these troubled times, to inspire the belief that change is possible.
Mererid Hopwood, a poet and peace campaigner, said giving the petition a permanent home in the grand library overlooking the sea in Aberystwyth was a statement of faith and hope.
“It gives us an opportunity to be inspired by the past so that we imagine – and create – a future where the people of the world can coexist peacefully with one another,” she said.
The sentiments may sound fanciful and idealistic, but the return of the petition from the US to Wales two years ago has already inspired a wave of peace activism led by women and girls, from festivals to fasts and banner-making.
Jill Evans, a former MEP and another prominent peace activist, said: “The return of the petition had been a catalyst. It’s brought so many women, so many communities together. People see so much violence and death on television every day and want to do something.”
The exhibition describes how in 1923, galvanised by the horrors of the first world war, Welsh women went street by street through the cities, towns and villages of Wales collecting signatures. Almost 400,000 women signed and it is claimed that if the sheets were laid end to end they would stretch 7 miles.
In 1924 the Welsh delegation crossed the Atlantic with the petition and travelled through the US addressing audiences at public meetings, women’s clubs, and churches.
Over the years the petition was forgotten, until a plaque mentioning it was uncovered at the time of the centenary of the first world war in Cardiff’s Temple of Peace. The petition was located in the US and was handed back to Wales in 2023.
At the centre of the new exhibition is the oak chest in which the petition was taken to the US and sheets from it. The names and addresses of those who signed have been transcribed and digitised, meaning visitors can use terminals in the space to search for the names of ancestors and neighbours.
The writer Angharad Elen said she was thrilled when she found her great-grandmother’s name - Mari John from Llanddewi Velfrey in south-west Wales, whose husband returned back from the first world war with what would now be called post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
Elen said: “I don’t have a photograph of Mari John, only stories passed down by my mother, and so seeing her name, in her handwriting, on a petition calling for peace, had a profound effect. Signing petitions are sometimes dismissed as being merely symbolic, or pointless. But symbols matter and can make solidarity visible and give shape to resistance.”
Elen and fellow artists headed Ympryd Dros Gaza (Fast for Gaza) in late summer involving almost 600 women across Wales. She said: “Poets, singers, and artists contributed words, music, and artwork, while others auctioned their creations to raise funds. All across the country, women organised community events – from gong baths for peace to gigs, film screenings and poetry evenings. We wanted to revive, and make visible, a tradition that belongs to Wales: a legacy of women who refuse to be silent in the face of war.”
Siân Harris, who has been involved in community engagement in relation to the petition, said people were fascinated by it. “It’s not just about some idealistic hope that we can stop war, it’s about finding ways of honing in on particular situations, deciding what is acceptable and what is totally unacceptable.”
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The petition can be seen here
