Community heritage in Action
Cymru Global’s heritage work comes to life when working with communities Wales-wide, facilitating volunteer-led projects that foster widespread participation and pride in Cymru’s ‘local to global’ identity. Through uncovering hidden histories of peacemakers past, community heritage projects can inspire action on global issues in the present.
From Cardiff to Caernarfon, Llangollen to Lesotho, this page spotlights digital legacies from recent peace heritage projects – most of which have been completed through volunteer-led activity, supported by one part-time heritage staff member. Cymru Global continue to actively seek funders and funding opportunities to enable us to support community groups to explore and bring to life further stories from Wales’ rich and inspiring Peace Heritage.
Peace Heritage Projects, WW1
Cymru Global’s heritage programming over recent years emerged as a legacy of the Heritage Lottery Funded WW1 Centenary programme ‘Wales for Peace’, which over 2014-20 worked with communities Wales-wide to explore the concept of ‘peace heritage’ – posing the question “how, in the 100 years since WW1, have Welsh communities contributed to the search for peace?” From Caernarfon to Carmarthen, creative projects unearthed previously hidden histories – and a narrative that remains core to Welsh identity today.
Signed by 390,296 women Wales-wide, this 7 mile long petition presented to the women of America in 1923 mobilised communities ravaged after WW1 – and laid the groundwork for United Nations and other internationalist movements.
In 1925 churches across Wales, in the aftermath of Disestablishment and WW1 – which had torn faith communities apart – built new ecumenical understandings as they presented a united petition to the ‘Faith Leaders Congress in Detroit, Dec 1925.
Community peace heritage projects
On 11 October 1973, the Welsh Centre for International Affairs at Wales’ Temple of Peace was officially opened by Foreign Office Minister Lady Tweedsmuir, following a 5-year campaign to ‘give Wales a voice in the world’.
From October 2023, WCIA ran a golden anniversary ‘year of activities’to celebrate half a century of WCIA – and to look forward towards the opportunities and challenges of the next half century, setting in motion the transition to Cymru Global.
Peace Heritage Projects
‘Our Heritage, Our Stories’ supported WCIA with running a serries of volunteer archiveathons, working on integrating the Temple Archives ‘Towards a National Collection‘ – pooling digital resources, knowledge and materials for community groups across the 4 nations.
Community peace heritage projects
As Dolen Cymru, Wales’ Lesotho Link, celebrate 4 decades after Wales having ‘been chosen’ to work with South Africa land-locked mountain kingdom, volunteers have been exploring archives from early days.
Peace Heritage
Over 2020-23, in partnership with Aberystwyth University’s Department of International Politics, Swansea University’s Department of History, and Academi Heddwch, WCIA supported a postgraduate (MPhil) research project by Heritage Advisor Craig Owen exploring ‘Histories and Narratives of Welsh Internationalism‘ – also financially supported through the Waterloo Foundation. Unfortunately the MPhil Thesis was not completed due to Cancer treatment, however most of the research has been made publicly available through feature articles, lectures and events linked below.
Peace Heritage
Marking 85 years from the grand opening of the Temple, WCIA hosted a book launch of ‘The First NHS’ by Emma Snow, with an interactive re-enactment led by a panel exploring hidden histories from Wales’ ‘Health Heritage‘. Part of the 75th Anniversary year of the NHS over 2023 – 2024. The project brought alive voices from the past, through a series of monologues from 1910 to 1948; followed by personal and professional reflections from present day health and care providers.
Peace Heritage Projects, WW1
Minnie James from Dowlais, Merthyr opened Wales’ Temple of Peace on 23 November 1938, representing war bereaved mothers of Wales and the world. She had lost 3 sons in the war – David, Thomas and Jack James.
Found by her descendents and very generously donated to the Temple of Peace in 2022, the Minnie James Collection project curated the letters, postcards, medals and miscellaneous items written by her sons from the trenches – a deeply emotive insight in to the experiences of Minnie and her family through World War 1 and its aftermath.
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Temple Friends
Explore some of the fascinating research projects recently completed by students undertaking heritage placements with WCIA over Spring-Summer 2023, funded through the Santander Foundation.
Peace Heritage Projects
Over 2022 – 2023, WCIA hosted and supported a team of international youth volunteers exploring Wales’ Peace Heritage, through placements at the Temple of Peace & Health in Cardiff and Gregynog Hall Trust in Powys, funded by the (last year of) ERASMUS+ programme. The collaboration built on a long and shared heritage, both venues having been founded by the Davies Family of Llandinam. The team produced a touring exhibition, for which they collectively won the Young Peacemakers Awards at the 2023 Llangollen International Eisteddfod.
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Peace Heritage Projects
Over Summer 2022, WCIA were fortunate to receive financial support from the Davies Family Trust, towards a series of volunteering Archiveathons, cataloguing and safeguarding the library archives and artefacts that collectively make up the Temple Collections under care of WCIA (the Welsh Centre for Inernational Affairs). The work also funded a professional Risk Audit, undertaken by Kevin Bolton of Manchester’s Archives+ Partnership.
As part of WCIA efforts to support Welsh communities responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this project explored peace heritage ties between the nations. The city of Donetsk -originally Hugheskova – was founded in 1870 by Merthyr ironmaster John Hughes with 100 Welsh migrant workers, now home to 1 million people at the heart of the conflict. Welsh journalist Gareth Jones in 1933 exposed the Holodomor, Stalin’s Ukrainian famine, in which 7-10 million Ukrainians died; assassinated in 1935, the ‘boy from Barry’ is regarded as a hero in Ukraine to this day. And in 1986 following the nuclear reactor explosion, Welsh groups founded the Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline.
From these histories are our actions today founded.
Peace heritage projects
Over 2020-22, WCIA worked with CND Cymru to support volunteer-led digitisation of their Welsh campaigns archives and newsletters.
Temple Friends
With financial support from Heritage Lottery Fund’s COVID Recovery Scheme, WCIA were able to retain one part-time role and develop a Heritage Management Plan to enable the organisation to prioritise future work within greatly diminished resources.
Volunteering
This crisis of global proportions required global solutions, solidarity and understanding. As the pandemic broke out, WCIA quickly stepped up to facilitate sharing of perspectives fro around the world: key sources of information and updates ; ways that people could take action in local to global solidarity; learning from our heritage; and stories of solidarity from individuals around the world.
Temple Friends
In November 2018, WCIA staged a month long programme of community events to mark Temple80 – the 80th anniversary of the Temple’s opening.
Communities & Schools – Speaking Truth to Power
Wales’ National Garden of Peace offered the first formal space where Welsh WW1 COs were honoured with a dedicated memorial. During the WW1 Centenary we also developed a a searchable database of Welsh COs building on research by Cyril Pearce, a touring exhibition ‘Belief & Action’, and accompanying schools pack.
Peace Heritage Projects
Over 1936-39 many Welshmen joined the International Brigades to fight the rise of fascism in Spain under General Franco – a terror immortalised in Picasso’s painting ‘Guernica’, a special copy of which hangs in Cardiff’s Temple of Peace. Some 4,000 children were packed on ships for Britain at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, many of whom were taken nin by Welsh communities. This HLF funded project led by Phil Cope with WCIA, captured their stories.
Archive Spotlight:
Minnie James from Dowlais, Merthyr opened Wales’ Temple of Peace on 23 November 1938, representing war bereaved mothers of Wales and the world. She had lost 3 sons, whose mementoes from the trenches – their letters, postcards and medals – she kept in her ‘box of treasures’, unearthed by her family over 80 years later and shared with the Temple Archives to tell their story.
Community Participation:
The story of the 1923 Welsh Women’s Peace Petition to America, supported by 390,296 women in the aftermath of World War One, inspired communities and individuals Wales-wide to mark the centenary of a truly remarkable campaign.
Community Projects
RECENT heritage POSTS
Archive of the Month – 100 years ago View People’s Collection Wales digitised items from the 1926 Peace Congress (from the Temple of Peace Archives) Paris, London, Brussels (1919), Milan (1920), Geneva (1921), Prague (1922), Vienna (1923), Lyon (1924), Warsaw (1925)… ABERYSTWYTH (1926)… Berlin (1927), The Hague (1928), Prague (1928), […]
Read moreThe foundation stone for Wales’ Temple of Peace was laid by Viscount Halifax, Lord Privy Seal and Deputy Foreign Secretary, on Thursday, 8th April 1937. He had been widely regarded as a leading light among interwar peace advocates and champion of the League of Nations; and would go on to play a […]
Read more#OnThisDay #OTD 100 years ago – Wed 25 Nov 1925 – a transatlantic liner called the ‘SS George Washington’ set sail from Southampton carrying a remarkable Peace Appeal from the Churches of Wales to America, conveyed by visionary Welsh peacebuilder the Rev Gwilym Davies. Over the next 6 weeks from […]
Read moreFollowing St David’s Day 1 March 2025, WCIA are delighted to have worked with ITV Wales producer Megan Booth on her short feature exploring the history of the Daffodil. “Let Peace Bloom across the hillsides of Wales” A little known but fascinating ‘fun fact’ for St David’s Day, is the […]
Read moreOver the summer of 2022 I am working as the Archive & Library officer alongside WCIA’s Peace Heritage Advisor, Craig Owen, and another internship student placement for the Digital Archives Officer position, Georgia Wood. […]
Read moreCan you volunteer a few hours of your time over Summer 2022, to help document the library collections of Wales’ Temple of Peace & Health? […]
Read moreFfion Edwards, from Llantwit Major, has been volunteering from home on WCIA’s ‘Peace Heritage’ programme – transcribing the Women’s Peace Appeal ‘American Peace Tour’ diary of WLNU Chair Annie Hughes Griffiths, from 1924. […]
Read moreIn November 1938 Minnie James from Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil, was thrust into the limelight when Lord David Davies, founder of Wales’ Temple of Peace, decided that he would like to have a Welsh mother who had lost sons in the Great War to open the Welsh National Temple of Peace […]
Read moreBy Craig Owen, Head of Wales for Peace at WCIA On June 16th 2019 – appropriately enough, Father’s Day – it was 75 years to the day since Lord David Davies of Llandinam (1880-1944), father and founder of Wales’ Temple of Peace & Health, passed away. A leading thinker in […]
Read moreWales’ Temple of Peace and Health was built as the nations’ memorial to the fallen of WW1 – thanks to the vision of one family of philanthopists from Powys, who made it their mission to support the people and communities of Wales in building a better world. David Davies (1880-1944), […]
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