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Sheffield Peace Congress


Guest Jeremy

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Life magazine has put up its photo archive on google images. Searching for Sheffield gets lots of photos of the 'Sheffield Peace Congress':

http://images.google.com/images?q=Sheffield+source%3Alife

I've never heard of this. Can anyone tell me anything about it? Apparently Picasso attended:

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?img...4e9bbd35b8eff99

Thanks,

Jeremy

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Life magazine has put up its photo archive on google images. Searching for Sheffield gets lots of photos of the 'Sheffield Peace Congress':

http://images.google.com/images?q=Sheffield+source%3Alife

I've never heard of this. Can anyone tell me anything about it? Apparently Picasso attended:

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?img...4e9bbd35b8eff99

Thanks,

Jeremy

It did and it didn't happen. The vicar of Darnall, Alan Ecclestone, was a radical cleric and peace campaigner. He attended the first World Peace Conference in Paris, which gave rise to the Stockholme Peace Petition, The World Council for Peace, and a number of peace committees.

Ecclestone became chair of the Sheffield Peace Committee, which collected 50,000 signatures towards the Peace Petition. As a result it was decided to hold the second World Peace Conference in Sheffield, in November 1950, with the support of the Church and the local Labour Party, and the City Hall was to be the venue.

Perhaps due to the Korean War which was being fought at the time, and the perceived threat of world communism, both the Church and the Labour Party got cold feet. Attlee, who was at first supportive, denounced it as a sham, and a week before the date set, the Home Secretary refused visas for two thirds of the delegates, including Paul Robeson and Dmitri Shostakovitch.

The conference opened on the 16th with about 4,500 delegates, and was addressed by Picasso, among others. He also drew a dove, which was auctioned and made £21! On the 19th the conference upped sticks and decamped to Warsaw.

(Details from Sheffield Troublemakers by David Price)

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