Parish Church of St. John the Baptist, Tunstall, a focal point in a scattered parish.
The LNU may have met in the village Reading Room.
© Janet Nelson
The Tunstall League of Nations Union (LNU) was one of the earliest members of the Lancaster LNU District Council, which had been set up to co-ordinate the existing branches in an area extending from the River Wyre to the Northern and Eastern borders of Lancashire. By 1924, the other branches besides Tunstall in North Lancashire were Lancaster (founded 1920), Morecambe , and Silverdale. In the early 1900s, Tunstall was an agricultural parish, with the major landowner living at Thurland Castle. (1)
The group was still flourishing in late 1934, when preparations for the Peace Ballot were being made nationally. It appears that the larger Carnforth LNU Branch was intending to be in charge of the arrangements for the Ballot in a number of different branches, an idea which Tunstall resisted. The Vicar, the Rev. R. Lees wrote to the Carnforth LNU to say that the Tunstall people ‘were making their own arrangements and would make a complete canvas.’ To date, no further information about Tunstall has come to light.
References/Further Reading:
(1) T. Bulmer & Co, 1913. Bulmer’s History & Directory of Lancaster & District, 1912. Preston: Snape for Bulmer.
Lancaster Guardian, 22 Mar 1924 & 2 Nov 1934.