Women's Co-operative Guild

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The Women's Co-operative Guild was founded in Oxford, England, in 1883 by a Mrs Acland. It was intended to be an organisation dedicated to spreading the Co-operative movement, but soon expanded beyond the retail-based focus of the movement. The Guild became more politically active, as well as expanding its work beyond the British Isles; their objectives included the establishment of minimum wages and maternity benefits, and in April 1914 they were involved in an International Women's Congress at the Hague which passed a resolution totally opposing war:

this Conference is of opinion that the terrible method of war should never again be used to settle disputes between nations, and urge that a partnership of nations, with peace as its object, should be established and enforced by the people's will.

After World War I the Guild became more involved in peace activism, concentrating especially on the social and political conditions that encouraged or gave rise to war, as well as opposition to the arms trade. In 1933 they introduced the White Poppy as a pacifist alternative to the British Legion's annual red poppy appeal.