National Peace Council

The National Peace Council (NPC), founded in 1908 and disbanded in 2000, acted as the co-ordinating body for almost 200 groups across Britain, with a membership ranging from small village peace groups to national trade unions and local authorities.

The groups were all united in their interest in peace, human rights, justice and the environment.

[1][2] Carl Heath was appointed General Secretary and was succeeded in 1919 by Francis E. Pollard,[3] who served until 1921, when James Hindle Hudson assumed the position.

[4] A major task in its early years was organizing the National Peace Congress, which also arranged conferences on specific issues.

During the Gulf War, the NPC organised the Gulf Crisis Working Group, a coalition of several groups that called for the withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait, an end to hostilities in the region and a peace conference to resolve the issues that had caused the war.