Peggy Duff
Encyclopedia
Peggy Duff was a British
political activist who was principally known for her contribution to the peace movement
as the organiser of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
.
. She attended the Hastings Secondary School for Girls. The headmistress noted that she was "very public-spirited". She then went to Bedford College, University of London, where she read English.
After university she worked as a journalist
and in 1933 married Bill Duff, a fellow journalist. He was killed during the Second World War while covering an American
air raid on the Burma railway
for an armed forces' newspaper. The couple had two daughters and a son (photo-journalist Euan Duff
). Duff began her involvement in peace campaigning in the late 1930s.
, an idealistic socialist
party to the left of Labour
set up by Sir Richard Acland
. After the 1945 election
in which Common Wealth ceded its vote to the Labour Party, Duff was employed by Victor Gollancz
's organization Save Europe Now, which sent food and clothing to occupied Germany
and Austria
from rationed Britain, and campaigned for the repatriation of prisoners of war. From 1949 to 1955 she was business manager of Tribune
, then identified with the supporters of Aneurin Bevan
. .
Briefly working with Victor Gollancz again, Duff became the secretary of the National Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment
, set up in August 1955, in part, as a response to a number of controversial executions (including that of Ruth Ellis
). In 1956 she was elected as a Labour member of St Pancras Borough Council
, where she became known as Chief Whip for the Labour group. She also supported the rights of tenants of council housing, but in doing so gave the green light to controversial architectural redevelopments and slum clearance programmes that are often considered to have blighted the ward she served.
, then Shadow Foreign Secretary, astonished his supporters by denouncing demands for unilateral nuclear disarmament. In November that year, Duff responded by joining with others to establish the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
(CND), which aimed to persuade Britain to "renounce unconditionally the use or production of nuclear weapons and refuse to allow their use by others in her defence". Duff became the Organising Secretary for the campaign, and her energy and resilience became well known to its supporters. Canon John Collins
, Chair of CND, noted that she never gave the impression of efficiency 'and seemed thoroughly slapdash', but that her work had impressive results. She organised the second and subsequent Aldermaston Marches
, 1959-1963.
, resigning as General Secretary of CND in 1967. She resigned from the Labour Party on 10 May 1967 over Harold Wilson
's diplomatic support for the United States in the Vietnam war
and refusal to condemn the Greek
dictatorship of 'the Colonels'. In later life she wrote her memoirs, "Left, Left, Left" in 1971, and edited and wrote part of "War or Peace in the Middle East?" (1978) in which she argued for "no more blank cheques for Israel
". She died of breast cancer
in University College Hospital
, aged 71. .
called Duff, "one of those heroes who is completely unknown, because she did too much," and stated that "she should have won the Nobel Peace Prize about twenty times." He described her as a "leading figure," in both the CND and the anti-Vietnam War movement.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
political activist who was principally known for her contribution to the peace movement
Peace movement
A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace...
as the organiser of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...
.
Background
Duff was born as Margaret Doreen Eames. Her father, Frank Eames, was a stockbroker's clerk in suburban MiddlesexMiddlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
. She attended the Hastings Secondary School for Girls. The headmistress noted that she was "very public-spirited". She then went to Bedford College, University of London, where she read English.
After university she worked as a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and in 1933 married Bill Duff, a fellow journalist. He was killed during the Second World War while covering an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
air raid on the Burma railway
Death Railway
The Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway, the Thailand–Burma Railway and similar names, was a railway between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma , built by the Empire of Japan during World War II, to support its forces in the Burma campaign.Forced labour was used in its construction...
for an armed forces' newspaper. The couple had two daughters and a son (photo-journalist Euan Duff
Euan Duff
Euan Duff is a photographer and photo-journalist, born in 1939 to the political activist, Peggy Duff and her husband Bill, a journalist who died in the latter stages of the Second World War....
). Duff began her involvement in peace campaigning in the late 1930s.
Political activism
During the war Duff joined Common WealthCommon Wealth Party
The Common Wealth Party was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom in the Second World War. Thereafter, it continued in being, essentially as a pressure group, until 1993.-The war years:...
, an idealistic socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
party to the left of Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
set up by Sir Richard Acland
Richard Acland
Sir Richard Thomas Dyke Acland, 15th Baronet was one of the founding members of the British Common Wealth Party. He had previously been a Liberal Member of Parliament and joined the Labour Party in 1945...
. After the 1945 election
United Kingdom general election, 1945
The United Kingdom general election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks. The results were counted and declared on 26 July, due in part to the time it took to...
in which Common Wealth ceded its vote to the Labour Party, Duff was employed by Victor Gollancz
Victor Gollancz
Sir Victor Gollancz was a British publisher, socialist, and humanitarian.-Early life:Born in Maida Vale, London, he was the son of a wholesale jeweller and nephew of Rabbi Professor Sir Hermann Gollancz and Professor Sir Israel Gollancz; after being educated at St Paul's School, London and taking...
's organization Save Europe Now, which sent food and clothing to occupied Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
from rationed Britain, and campaigned for the repatriation of prisoners of war. From 1949 to 1955 she was business manager of Tribune
Tribune (magazine)
Tribune is a democratic socialist weekly, founded in 1937 published in London. It is independent but supports the Labour Party from the left...
, then identified with the supporters of Aneurin Bevan
Aneurin Bevan
Aneurin "Nye" Bevan was a British Labour Party politician who was the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1959 until his death in 1960. The son of a coal miner, Bevan was a lifelong champion of social justice and the rights of working people...
. .
Briefly working with Victor Gollancz again, Duff became the secretary of the National Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
, set up in August 1955, in part, as a response to a number of controversial executions (including that of Ruth Ellis
Ruth Ellis
Ruth Ellis , née Neilson, was the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom. She was convicted of the murder of her lover, David Blakely, and hanged at Holloway Prison, London, by Albert Pierrepoint.-Biography:...
). In 1956 she was elected as a Labour member of St Pancras Borough Council
Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras
The Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras was a Metropolitan borough of the County of London between 1900 and 1965, when it was amalgamated with the Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead and the Metropolitan Borough of Holborn to form the London Borough of Camden...
, where she became known as Chief Whip for the Labour group. She also supported the rights of tenants of council housing, but in doing so gave the green light to controversial architectural redevelopments and slum clearance programmes that are often considered to have blighted the ward she served.
CND
At the Labour Party conference in 1957, Aneurin BevanAneurin Bevan
Aneurin "Nye" Bevan was a British Labour Party politician who was the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1959 until his death in 1960. The son of a coal miner, Bevan was a lifelong champion of social justice and the rights of working people...
, then Shadow Foreign Secretary, astonished his supporters by denouncing demands for unilateral nuclear disarmament. In November that year, Duff responded by joining with others to establish the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...
(CND), which aimed to persuade Britain to "renounce unconditionally the use or production of nuclear weapons and refuse to allow their use by others in her defence". Duff became the Organising Secretary for the campaign, and her energy and resilience became well known to its supporters. Canon John Collins
Canon John Collins
John Collins was an Anglican priest who was active in several radical political movements in the United Kingdom.Educated at Cranbrook School, Kent and the University of Cambridge, Collins served as a chaplain in the Royal Air Force during World War II and was radicalised by the experience...
, Chair of CND, noted that she never gave the impression of efficiency 'and seemed thoroughly slapdash', but that her work had impressive results. She organised the second and subsequent Aldermaston Marches
Aldermaston Marches
The Aldermaston marches were protest demonstrations organised by the British anti-war Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1950s and 1960s. They took place on Easter weekend between the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire, England, and London, over a distance of...
, 1959-1963.
Later life
In 1965 she commenced work for the International Confederation for Disarmament and PeaceInternational Confederation for Disarmament and Peace
The International Confederation for Disarmament and Peace was an organisation formed by peace groups from western and non-aligned nations in 1963....
, resigning as General Secretary of CND in 1967. She resigned from the Labour Party on 10 May 1967 over Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
's diplomatic support for the United States in the Vietnam war
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and refusal to condemn the Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
dictatorship of 'the Colonels'. In later life she wrote her memoirs, "Left, Left, Left" in 1971, and edited and wrote part of "War or Peace in the Middle East?" (1978) in which she argued for "no more blank cheques for Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
". She died of breast cancer
Breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...
in University College Hospital
University College Hospital
University College Hospital is a teaching hospital located in London, United Kingdom. It is part of the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is closely associated with University College London ....
, aged 71. .
Evaluation
Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
called Duff, "one of those heroes who is completely unknown, because she did too much," and stated that "she should have won the Nobel Peace Prize about twenty times." He described her as a "leading figure," in both the CND and the anti-Vietnam War movement.