Front page advertisment for the Lancaster LNU 1927 Armistice Night meeting
Lancaster Guardian, 12 Nov 1927
The Lancaster Branch of the League of Nations Union (LNU) held meetings in November to coincide with Armistice Day. Speakers stressed the importance encouraging public opinion to side with the cause of peace, which lay through the League of Nations while at the same time honouring those who had died. In 1923, Rev. Ralph Tooth, a Lancaster Wesleyan minister who had served as a chaplain in the War, spoke for the LNU at the civic Armistice service in Dalton Square. His address set the tone for future Armistice meetings. While paying homage to those who died, he reminded his listeners of the importance of the League of Nations in preventing future wars.
In some years Lancaster LNU invited outside speakers. In 1927 they held an ‘Armistice Night meeting’ on 11 November at the Ashton Hall, Lancaster, at which Capt. L. H. Green, MA from London spoke about the importance of young people working for peace and P. M. Oliver, an ex-Liberal Manchester MP, discussed the 1926 Disarmament Conference at Geneva. For the next two years the meetings were addressed by the local MP and representatives of the two other parties, a format which attracted larger audiences than in 1927. The Secretary, Mrs Dowbiggin reported at the following AGM: ‘The [1928] Armistice night meeting was the outstanding meeting of the year.’ In 1929 the press report notes that all three speakers stressed the importance of the League. The evening included a minute’s silence for the Fallen. In 1936, at the LNU’s ‘Night of Remembrance,’ the guest speaker, Vyvian Adams, MP for Leeds, remained optimistic about the League.
References/Further Reading:
Lancaster Guardian, 17 Nov 1923, 19 Nov 1927, 23 Mar 1929, 16 Nov 1929 & 13 Nov 1936.