Subversive peacemakers
Thursday 8th October
11:30am St Nicholas’ Cathedral, Education Centre (with prayers for peace from 11am)
and
6pm Blackwells bookshop, Haymarket (with drinks reception).
Speaker: Clive Barrett, drawing on his book about British opposition to World War 1.
100 years ago the Military Service Act was being prepared for enactment in early 1916 deeming all able bodied men aged 18-41 to have joined the armed forces. Not everyone agreed with this. Historian, peace activist and Anglican priest Clive Barrett has written a remarkable book about the brave women and men in the Anglican church who resisted the war for reasons of religious, moral and political conscience. Many of these people suffered ostracism, imprisonment, torture and subsequent occupational discrimination for their stand. It is important that their principled and costly witness is not forgotten in the WW1 centennial commemorations.
Subversive Peacemakers recounts the stories of a strong and increasingly organised opposition to war, from peace groups to poets, from preachers to politicians, from women to working men, all of whom struggled to secure peace in a militarised and fragmenting society.
Rev Dr Clive Barrett chairs the Peace Museum Trust and Company in Bradford and is an academic and author. Subversive Peacemakers is published by Lutterworth Press.
Organised by the Northumbria and Newcastle Universities Martin Luther King Peace Committee, with the Church of England’s Newcastle Central Deanery/St Nicholas’ Cathedral Education Office (morning event) and Blackwells Bookshop (evening event).
Everyone is welcome to either/both events, no need to book.
For more information contact Andii Bowsher (andii.bowsher@northumbria.ac.uk) or Nick Megoran (mlkpc@ncl.ac.uk)
See the Facebook Event
Image: ‘The Conchie’, by Arthur Wilson Gay, 1931. Peace Museum, Bradford.