The Women's Peace Crusade

Although it gathered a substantial following, the Women's Peace Crusade faced opposition from both the government and police, with members being arrested and reportedly threatened.

[1] The outbreak of World War I caused a schism within the pre-war efforts for women's suffrage as individuals within the suffrage movement in the United Kingdom took various stances with regards to the necessary morality of Great Britain entering the ever widening war footing that developed among neighbouring European Nations after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914.

In the early aftermath of the British Government's Declaration of War, Emmeline Pankhurst, Leader of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), and from her politically motivated decision to move to Paris, announced that, from this time, the WSPU should desist from its suffrage activities and concentrate their efforts in supporting the Government's War effort.

Helen Crawfurd – an Independent Labour Party (ILP) representative and a lapsed member of WSPU – was the secretary of the Glasgow branch of the WIL.

[5] The demonstration had been organised by Helen Crawfurd, a working class feminist and socialist who had played a significant role in the Glasgow Rent Strike of 1915.

[7] The central demand of the Women's Peace Crusade was to negotiate an immediate end to the First World War, but there were specific aims within this.

Literature distributed by the movement stated that it aimed to allow all nations to choose their own form of government, to be fully developed, to access the world's markets and raw materials, and to travel freely.