The Peace Pledge Union is a British non-governmental organization which emerged from an initiative by Dick Sheppard, canon of St Paul's Cathedral, in 1934, after he had published a letter in the Manchester Guardian and other newspapers, inviting men (but not women) to send him postcards pledging never to support war. 135,000 men responded and became members. The initial male-only aspect of the pledge was aimed at countering the idea that only women were involved in the peace movement. In 1936 membership was opened to women, and the newly founded Peace News was adopted as the PPU's weekly newspaper. In 1937 the No More War Movement formally merged with the PPU.
Nowadays, one of the PPU's most visible aspects is the White Poppy appeal, which was started in 1933 by the Women's Co-operative Guild, and is now run by the PPU. This was set up parallel to the red poppy appeal of Remembrance Day; a white poppy is intended to convey remembrance not simply of soldiers killed, but also of civilian victims on all sides in all wars, standing as "a pledge to peace that war must not happen again". The appeal somewhat ironically gained popularity in 1986, when Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher expressed in Parliament her "deep distaste" of them,1 leading to the poppies getting more press coverage and becoming more visible to the public eye.
