A collection of historic documents from Coventry Lord Mayor’s Committee for Peace and Reconciliation from 1980 is kept in Coventry Archives in The Herbert under catalogue number PA2994.

If anyone wishes to see the collection, they should send us an e mail to: archives@culturecoventry.com who can arrange an appointment.

The collection consists of the following materials at present:

PA2994

LORD MAYOR OF COVENTRY’S PEACE COMMITTEE

1980 – 2012

Minutes, correspondence, etc..

PA2994/1

Constitution File

9 Oct 1998 – 24 Feb 2004

PA2994/2

History File

1980 – Sep 2004

PA2994/3

Membership File CLOSED until 31 Dec 2033 [date of latest membership list]

Sep 1999 – 22 Aug 2005

PA2994/4

Minutes File

23 Sep 1985 – 12 Dec 2012

PA2994/5

Finance File

Feb 2000 – Dec 2003

PA2994/6

General Correspondence File

1 Aug 1994 – 3 Oct 2000

includes letters about peace lecture arrangements, land mines, Sikhs within India

PA2994/7

Peace Lectures

1999 – 2008

PA2994/7/1

Peace Lecture, 16 Nov 1999:- Zaki Badawai and Simon Sternberg: “Peace in the Middle
East”

10 Mar 1999 – 7 Jan 2000

With presentation of the first Annual Coventry Peace Prize to Richard Stone (chair of
Runnymede Trust and of enquiries into Islamophobia and Stephen Lawrence murder) and
Clive Marks (for work in limb replacement in Vietnam and Chenobyl).

PA2994/7/2

Peace Lecture, 17 Oct 2000:- Michael Taylor: “Debt, Poverty and Peace”

17 Oct 2000

PA2994/7/3

Peace Lecture, 26 Oct 2001:- Bruce Kent: “Time to Abolish War”

5 May 2001 – 26 Oct 2001

PA2994/7/4

Peace Lecture, 17 Oct 2002:- Inderjit Singh: “Ways to World Peace: a Sikh Perspective”

4 Apr 2002 – 17 Oct 2002

Includes a biography of the speaker.

PA2994/7/5

Peace Lecture, 27 Oct 2003:- Malcolm Harper: “The United Nations and the Search for
Peace”

Includes a biography of the speaker. The original choice to speak had been the former
second Viscount Stansgate, who preferred to be known as Tony Benn. It was also hoped
that the president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, would attend in 2003 and give the lecture the
following year.

PA2994/7/6

Peace Lecture, 26 Oct 2004:- Mary Davis: “The Changing Nature of Nationalism and the
Efffect of a Unipolar World Order on Regional Conflict: Israel and Palestine: Politics and
History”

26 Oct 2004

Invitation only.

PA2994/7/7

Peace Lecture, 2 Nov 2005:- Martin Bell: “A Requiem for War”

6 May 2005 – 2 Nov 2005

PA2994/7/8

Peace Lecture, 2 Nov 2006:- Aaron Tovish: “Civilisation or Civicide”

1 Sep 2006 – 2 Nov 2006

PA2994/7/9

Peace Lecture, 4 Nov 2008:- Jon Roper: “War, Memory and the Search for a Usable Past”

22 Apr 2008 – 4 Nov 2008

Includes a curriculum vitae.

PA2994/8

Hiroshima Day Commemorations

2000 – 2011

The first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 Aug 1945. The lightning flash that
accompanied the explosion resonated in some people’s minds with the description in the
Bible of Jesus’ being transfigured, which is marked by the church on 6 Aug. Every year
around the anniverary of the bomb’s dropping, a non-religious commemoration was held in
Coventry cathedral which included making origami cranes as a symbol of peace in
memory of a Japanese girl who made them after the explosion until she was too ill through
fatal radiation sickness to continue.

PA2994/8/1

Hiroshima Day Commemoration, 6 Aug 2000

5 Aug 2000 – 6 Aug 2000

Includes instructions for making an origami crane and the story of the girl who made them.

PA2994/8/2

Hiroshima Day Commemoration, Aug 2001

Aug 2001

PA2994/8/3

Hiroshima Day Commemoration, 6 Aug 2003

23 Jul 2003 – 6 Aug 2003

PA2994/8/4

Hiroshima Day Commemoration, 6 Aug 2004

6 Aug 2004

PA2994/8/5

Hiroshima Day Commemoration, 6 Aug 2005

8 Jun 2005 – 6 Aug 2005

PA2994/8/6

Hiroshima Day Commemoration, 6 Aug 2006

12 Jul 2006 – 6 Aug 2006

PA2994/8/7

Hiroshima Day Commemoration, 6 Aug 2007

26 Jul 2007 – 6 Aug 2007

PA2994/8/8

Hiroshima Day Commemoration, 6 Aug 2008

6 Aug 2008

PA2994/8/9

Hiroshima Day Commemoration, 6 Aug 2011

6 Aug 2011

Poster only.

PA2994/9

Causes Supported

1998 – 2007

PA2994/9/1

Toxic Weapons Files

1999 – 2000

PA2994/9/1/1

Toxic Weapons Correspondence File

6 Jan 2000 – 1 Nov 2000

Includes conference arrangements and letters to Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

PA2994/9/1/2

/1-4 Toxic Weapons: file of photocopies of newspaper cuttings

24 Dec 1999 – 21 Mar 2000

PA2994/9/1/3

/1-10 photographs of foetuses and newborns deformed through use of toxic weapons in
Iraq

2000

[2000.] WARNING: these are disturbing images to view.
Photograph

PA2994/9/2

Refugees File

8 Nov 1999 – 13 Nov 1999

PA2994/9/3

Balkans File

Mar 2000 – 18 May 2000

PA2994/9/4

Vietnam File

Jun 2000 – 12 Mar 2008

Concerned with longterm environmental consequences of the Vietnam War.

PA2994/9/5

Land Mines File

4 Sep 2000 – 23 May 2005

PA2994/9/6

Israel/Palestine File

3 Nov 2000 – 9 Jan 2009

PA2994/9/7

Diego Garcia File

22 Nov 2000 – 15 Oct 2004

PA2994/9/8

Depleted Uranium File

19 Mar 2001 – 25 May 2003

PA2994/9/9

World Trade Centre, New York File

Sep 2001

PA2994/9/10

Guantanamo Bay Prison File

16 Jan 1002 – 15 Jun 2002

PA2994/9/11

Mayors for Peace Questionnaire File

29 Mar 2002 – 22 Aug 2003

PA2994/9/12

India/Pakistan File

29 May 2002 – 6 Jun 2002

PA2994/9/13

West Midlands Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament File

2002

C.2002.

PA2994/9/14

Book Aid File

3 Mar 2003 – 17 Jun 2003

PA2994/9/15

Iraq War File

24 Mar 2003 – 2 Oct 2004

PA2994/9/16

West Papua File

Apr 2005 – 16 Jan 2006

PA2994/9/17

Middle East File

3 Aug 2006 – 11 Jan 2007

PA2994/9/18

Miscellaneous Issues File

2 Jun 1998 – 21 Aug 2004

Includes possibility of establishing educational links with a school in “Star City”, a Russian
closed military town (2001).

PA2994/10

Printed material

1996 – 2011

PA2994/10/1

Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture: “Lives under threat: a Study of
Sikhs coming to the U.K. from the Punjab”

Oct 1996

PA2994/10/2

Bruderhof Communities: “The Plough”

May 1998

Focus on Iraq.

PA2994/10/3

Bruderhof Communities: “The Plough”

Apr 2000

[Spring, 2000.] Articles about East Timor, use of depleted uranium.

PA2994/10/4

Joy Pagano (comp.): “The Tools of Genocide against Iraq: Sanctions and Depleted
Uranium Weapons”

2000

C.2000.

PA2994/10/5

Landmine Action: “Campaign”

Sep 2001

Issue 3, Autumn 2001. Mentions anti-personnel mines.

PA2994/10/6

Michael Rowbotham: “Written in Belief”

2001

C.2001. Critique of American foreign policy.

PA2994/10/7

Walter Wink: “Engaging the Powers”

2001

C.2001. Photocopy of chapter about turning the other cheek.

PA2994/10/8

Medical Aid for Palestinians

2002

[20]02.

PA2994/10/9

Pax Christi Campaign: “People of the Holy Land need Bridges, not Walls”

2002

C.2002.

PA2994/10/10

Coventry Cathedral International Community of the Cross of Nails conference, 13-18 Jul
2004

2004

PA2994/10/10/1

Chapel of Unity, Coventry Cathedral: Prayers and Readings for Peace and Reconciliation

2004

C.2004.

PA2994/10/10/2

“Reconcile” Quarterly News

Apr 2004

Q2, 2004.

PA2994/10/10/3

Community of the Cross of Nails flier

2004

PA2994/10/10/4

Community of the Cross of Nails conference correspondence

14 Apr 2004

PA2994/10/10/5

Community of the Cross of Nails conference timetable

13 Jul 2003 – 18 Jul 2003

PA2994/10/11

Nicola Butler: “Warming Up for a New Arms Race”

2004

PA2994/10/12

British Petroleum Sustainability Report

2004

PA2994/10/13

Flier for march on seventy-fifth anniversary of Cable Street, London violence between
anti-fascists and the British Union of Fascists

2 Oct 2011

PA2994/11

Additional material

1990

PA2994/11/1

Newspaper Cutting

1990

C.1990. From “Coventry Evening Telegraph” about planting of a sapling near Coventry
cathedral in memory of those died in the blitz.