The Welsh Womens Peace Petition

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How do I sign up to the Peace Petition Centenary Project updates and/or register interest in the transcription project?

To find out more about this transcription project or keep up to date with updates and opportunities to take part complete this registration form.

What is the story behind the petition?

In 1923, with the horrors of World War 1 having galvanised a whole generation against conflict, women of Wales organised an unprecedented campaign for world peace. 390,296 women signed a memorial petition through the Welsh League of Nations Union – said to have been 7 miles long – calling for America to join and lead the new League of Nations. The petition was then transported to America by Annie Hughes Griffiths, Mary Ellis and Elined Prys, to be presented to the League of Women Voters alongside 9 organisations (representing 5 million American women). During their visit, they were presented to the then President, Calvin Coolidge, who accepted the petition and agreed to it being deposited within the Smithsonian Institute. Annie, Mary and Elined then embarked upon a ‘Peace Tour’ of the United States, spending a month spreading Wales’ Peace Message.

The petition has now been returned to Wales and each page is currently being scanned at the National Library of Wales ahead of the transcription project.

Who is running this project?

The project is being run by the Welsh Centre for International Affairs (WCIA) and Academi Heddwch alongside their partners: Women's Archives Wales, Heddwch Nain Mamgu, The National Library of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru. Together with other national organisations, they will mark the centenary of the Women’s Peace Appeal of 1923-24, organised through WCIA’s predecessor the Welsh League of Nations Union (WLNU). The project is funded by Welsh Government and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

What will the outcome of the project? What’s it all about?

The aim of the project is to celebrate this amazing event, to Remember their story, Celebrate the centenary and Realise their wishes by inspiring future peace activists. Transcribing the names and addresses of the 390,296 women who signed the petition will enable further research to discover connections with family or community. By taking part in the transcription, you will be playing a part in uncovering this previously 'hidden history'.

How old do I need to be?

Anyone over the age of 16 can start transcribing independently.

What skills and experience do I need?

You’ll be transcribing multiple types of handwriting so basic IT and attention to detail would be good. You’ll also need online access, a laptop or PC and email account.

How much time do I need to give?

You can do as little as one page or as many as you like. A single page can take as little as 20 minutes.

Will I get support?

We will be organising lots of community events to support your efforts and will also create a closed Facebook group for you to liaise with us and chat to other volunteers.

Do I have to be in Wales to take part?

Absolutely not! This transcription project is entirely digital and can be done from home. However, it would be an advantage to have knowledge of Welsh names and spellings.

How can my organisation or community group take part in this project?

Contact one of our Community Outreach Officers and let’s start talking.

Why do you need my personal data? How long will you keep my personal data?

If you sign up to the transcription project, your data will be retained by both the WCIA [hosting the Academi Heddwch partnership] and the National Library Wales [hosting the transcription project] – click on the links to view privacy policies

Academi Heddwch Privacy Policy

National Library Wales Privacy Policy

Platform/transcription related questions

How do I take part?

You can access the Peace Petition transcription project by visiting Torf, the Library’s Crowdsourcing website.

Do I need to register to be able to take part?

Yes, you will have to register to take part. You can do this by clicking on the ‘Register’ button in the upper right hand corner of the menu bar. Once you’ve signed up you’ll be able to transcribe and keep track of your progress.

What items are included?

The Peace Petition consists of approximately 390,296 names and addresses recorded on approximately 7500-8000 petition sheets from locations all around Wales. The Petition has been arranged in 33 document boxes. While petition sheets from the same area are generally grouped together the petition is not arranged geographically as a collection. There are sheets from different counties within the same box and there are also sets of sheets from the same area in separate boxes.

How do I choose an item to transcribe?

To select a petition to transcribe you can either:

(a) Click on Start Contributing and a random petition will be assigned to you.

(b) Choose a petition from a specific box and click on Contribute.

How do I search for a location that’s important to me?

Once you’ve signed in to transcribe you can use the search bar in the upper right hand corner to type in the name of a location. This should bring up a list of all the petitions that contains that specific place name.

Once I begin work on a petition page, can I return to it when I’m ready?

Yes, once you begin transcribing a petition, it will be saved to your account. Next time you log in, you will be invited to ‘Continue with this transcription’.

What should I do if I’m struggling to read the handwriting?

If you are not sure you have transcribed correctly, simply tick this box that appears beneath your entry: 'Tick if you are not confident that your transcription is accurate.'

Old fashioned hand writing can be difficult to decipher. Take a look at some of these free resources to help:

Can I choose the petition pages I want to transcribe or will they be allocated to me?

You are welcome to choose a petition that’s relevant to you to transcribe by choosing one from a specific box or click the Start contributing button to be allocated a random page.

Can I transcribe on a phone or tablet?

We would advise you to use a laptop or a computer to do the transcription work as some of the tasks are not possible to complete on mobile devices.

How can I check an address if the handwriting is unclear or I’m not sure about a place name or street?

This is where the fun begins and you may need to do a bit of detective work!

Google maps should help in most cases so always a good place to start.

However, here are some helpful links to online archives that may aid further research:

What do the coloured progress bars underneath the images mean?

The bar under the image represents its status:

The green bar shows that the annotations of this petition has been completed;
The orange bar indicates that work has started on this petition, but it has not been completed;
The light blue bar shows that no one has started working on this petition

How do I make the text clearer to read?

You can use the ‘+’ and ‘-‘signs, or the wheel on your mouse, to scroll in and out of the image. This will make the text easier to read. You can also use your mouse to drag the image around the screen.

What do I do if I come across abbreviations?

The main goal is to create text that mirrors the original and therefore it’s important to preserve original spellings, grammar and word order even if it’s grammatically incorrect.

Should I preserve the original spellings of place names even though they’re incorrect?

Yes, the transcribed text should match the page of the petition- the way that place names are written can change over time.

What do I do if the text is unclear or illegible?

We realise that some handwriting styles can prove quite difficult to read and, in these instances, we suggest you transcribe the entry to the best of your ability and tick the ‘Text difficult to transcribe’ box. But if it’s completely impossible to make out the name/address we advise you not to draw a box around the entry at all and to leave it blank so that we can reassign it to another user. If this is the case, please complete this form so that we can reassign the petition.

Should I transcribe “ditto” marks?

If you encounter the ditto “” marks please simply type the word that the ditto mark is intended to stand for if it’s visible on the petition.

What do I do if I come across a blank page?

If you come across a page that is blank tick the ‘Tick this box if the page contains no names to transcribe’ box. This will enable us to identify all the blank pages.

What do the coloured boxes mean when you’re transcribing?

Once you’ve started the transcription process you will notice that the boxes you’ve drawn around the entries will turn red/purple. The purple blocks usually illustrate what you have previously transcribed in earlier sessions whilst the red boxes show what you’ve transcribed in your current session. The boxes don’t change colour immediately as they need to go through the auto-review process first. You can refresh (Ctrl F5) the page to view the latest version of the page.

Is there a way I can identify which petitions I’ve completed?

You can view which petitions you’ve completed by clicking on your name in the top right hand corner and selecting ‘User dashboard’. The ‘Contributions’ tab should give you a list of all the entries you’ve transcribed.

Sometimes the digital image of the petition disappears when I’m mid-way through transcribing. What should I do?

If this should happen to you, try and refresh the page (Ctrl F5) to see if that rectifies the problem. If the issue persists, please fill in this form.

I’ve come across an ‘X’ by the name/address- should I note this?

Yes you should. If there is an ‘x’ by the name/address you should transcribe it. We are not entirely sure what the ‘x’ represents but the ‘x’ could be a way that was used to indicate illiteracy on the part of the person signing or it could have been a way in which the organisers kept track of the addresses they visited. Whatever the reason, transcribing the ‘x’ will give us a complete picture and enable further research once all the data has been collated.

What should I do if there is no address and no ditto visible on the petition?

If there are no addresses or ditto visible in the address field, you should leave it blank.

Is there a way I can de-allocate a petition that’s been allocated to myself?

Users can’t de-allocate petitions, but you can contact us through this form if you wish to do this.

What do I do if I’ve noticed I’ve made a mistake?

There is no way for a transcriber to correct a mistake once the entry has been submitted. What we advise you to do is draw another box around the name/address and transcribe it again.

How often will you be releasing more boxes to transcribe?

We aim to release 2 new boxes each week so that there are enough petitions available for volunteers to transcribe.