Aerial view of Clitheroe
The Clitheroe Branch of the League of Nations Union (LNU) existed from at least 1931 until 1938 and was very active. It met at either the Congregational School or the Parish Church School, its Chairman in 1931 being Mr Bailey, a Governor at Clitheroe Boys’ Grammar School.
Mr Bailey’s son, Gerald, was the Secretary of the National Peace Conference and he addressed the branch meetings on several occasions in the 1930s. In October 1931 he gave a lecture on the Manchuria Dispute and disarmament. Germany’s departure from the disarmament talks was the subject of a detailed lecture in November 1933. Gerald Bailey said it was a dangerous time and reviewed in a critical manner what the League of Nations had done, as well as current attitudes of governments to disarmament. In 1938 he gave an address called ‘Armed Truce, or Lasting Truce,’ at an Armistice meeting organised by the Clitheroe Branch of the LNU. He said that the Munich Agreement was a respite from war and he was critical of Chamberlain. He thought that a new meeting to abolish imperial powers might give peace. The alternative was war.
References/Further Reading:
Clitheroe Advertiser and Times, 17 Oct 1931, 3 Nov 1933, 11 Nov 1938.
Wikipedia. Gerald Bailey (1903-75).