Social History In 50 Objects Number 5. - Glasgow Corporation Peace Medal/White Poppy

 


The other day I wrote about my Granda's Pacific Star medal from the war and how he struggled to find work after WWII.

By way of contrast, today's object is a Glasgow Corporation Peace Medal from 1919, to mark the ending of hostlities, set into a white poppy.

These brass peace medals were issued by nearly every town and local authority across Britain to commemorate the Versailles Treaty and given out to children as part of the Peace Day public holiday of 19 July 1919.

It is perhaps helpful for us to remember just how unhappy the British public were about the various military parades and extravagant victory celebrations which took place immediately after WWI.

Especially when so many ex-servicemen were now unemployed, ex-soldiers suffered greatly after the war and also during the 1921 economic slump.

In Manchester, demobilised soldiers marched with banners proclaiming ‘Honour the dead - remember the living’, and ‘work not charity’.

Just like their forbearers before them, facing the same hardshp on returning from the Napoleonic wars, protesting at St Peter's Field. These soldiers also insisted  that the money would be better spent supporting returning servicemen who had suffered physical and mental injuries.

The men of the Royal Artillery stationed at Le Havre even burnt down several depots in a riot and on the 3rd of January 1919. While frustrated soldiers mutinied at Folkestone. Later that same month, there was another mutiny at Calais involving around 20,000 men.

However, the issuing of peace medals to the public by civic authorities, alongside the white poppy, represented an alternative to the unpopular militaristic and jingoistic victory celebrations, more in keeping with the feelings of working class people, following the end of the war.

The White Poppy tradition is very old and rooted in some of the noblest institutions and finest individuals Britain has ever produced, including fine Christian Socialists such as George Lansbury, Dick Sheppard, Donald Soper, Vera Brittain who all belonged to the Peace Pledge Union which established the White Poppy after the war, pictured below.


The idea that White Poppies are a modern invention created by 'woke,' liberals for who hate Britain is nonsense. The great Dick Sheppard was the Dean of Canterbury and a respected establishment figure, who felt called to peacemaking following his experiences in WWI.

White Poppies dont exist to insult or judge those who choose to wear red poppies and the PPU does not celebrate or honour the 'enemies of Britain'.

Indeed, it was the PPU founder Dick Sheppard who established the festival of remembrance but he and others sought to make remembrance about ending ALL war FOREVER, today white poppys symbolise three things...

1. Remembrance for all victims of war.
2. A commitment to peace.
3. A challenge to attempts to glamourise or celebrate war.

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