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64-601: The PPU emerged from an initiative by Hugh Richard Lawrie '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, with co-ordination by Sheppard, the Methodist Reverend John C. B. Myer, and others, formally became members. The initial male-only aspect of

128-432: A German invasion was shown to include her name. From the 1930s onwards, Brittain was a regular contributor to the pacifist magazine Peace News . She eventually became a member of the magazine's editorial board and during the 1950s and 1960s was "writing articles against apartheid and colonialism and in favour of nuclear disarmament ". In November 1966, she suffered a fall in a badly lit London street en route to

192-431: A political scientist (1896–1979). Their son, John Brittain-Catlin (1927–1987), whose relationship with his mother steadily deteriorated as he got older, was an artist, painter, businessman and the author of the posthumously published autobiography Family Quartet , which appeared in 1987. Their daughter, born 1930, was the former Labour Cabinet Minister, later Liberal Democrat peer, Shirley Williams (1930–2021), one of

256-709: A PPU publication, Warmongers , Clive Bell said that Germany should be permitted to "absorb" France, Poland, the Low Countries and the Balkans. However, this was never the official policy of the PPU and the position quickly drew criticism from other PPU activists such as Vera Brittain and Andrew Stewart. Clive Bell left the PPU shortly afterwards and by 1940 he was supporting the war. Some PPU supporters were so sympathetic to German grievances that PPU supporter Rose Macaulay claimed she found it difficult to distinguish between

320-837: A cause war cannot achieve". The PPU also opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and condemned both the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands and the British response . It has also promoted the ideas of pacifist thinkers such as Leo Tolstoy , Mahatma Gandhi , Martin Luther King Jr. , and Richard B. Gregg . The group had a branch in Northern Ireland, the Peace Pledge Union in Northern Ireland; in

384-620: A close friendship developed. They both aspired to become established on the London literary scene, and shared various London flats after coming down from Oxford. Eventually Holtby would become part of the Brittain-Catlin household after Brittain's marriage. The bond lasted until Holtby's death from kidney failure in 1935. Other literary contemporaries at Somerville included Dorothy L. Sayers , Hilda Reid , Margaret Kennedy and Sylvia Thompson . In 1925, Brittain married George Catlin ,

448-588: A dugout expecting the Germans at any moment all through one night. I've held a leg and several other limbs while the surgeon amputated them. I've fought a drunken Tommy and protected several German prisoners from a French mob. I've missed a thousand opportunities and lived through a life's experience in five weeks." Sheppard had a breakdown which resulted from this experience, and these few weeks in France affected his view of warfare. Supported by Lang, he returned to

512-461: A nationwide response a solemn ceremony In Memory replaced the Ball. Such was its resonance with the public that it became an annual event that continues to this day. Lang, appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1928, supported the appointment of Sheppard as Dean of Canterbury in 1929. Although his preaching attracted huge audiences, illness once again forced resignation in 1931. Trying to develop

576-400: A negotiated peace with Germany. On 9 March 1940, 2,000 people attended a PPU public meeting calling for a negotiated peace. PPU membership reached a peak of 140,000 in 1940. For some members of the PPU, the focus was less on a negotiated peace and more on "nonviolent revolution" in both Britain and Germany. In 1940, the PPU published a booklet called Plan of Campaign , reprinting an article by

640-593: A pacifist, he articulated a vision of a non-institutional church in The Impatience of a Parson (1927). Sheppard was partly responsible for the annual Festival of Remembrance that takes place in the Royal Albert Hall , London on the first Saturday in November before Remembrance Sunday . In November 1925 he wrote to The Times protesting against a proposed Charity Ball on Armistice Day. Following

704-884: A public political platform for pacifism, with Herbert Gray and Maude Royden , Sheppard proposed in 1931 a Peace Army of unarmed peacemakers to stand between the Chinese and Japanese armies in Shanghai . More successfully, he issued a call for "peace pledges" in 1934. He published We Say 'No' (1935) and formally established the Peace Pledge Union in 1936. In 1937 – the year of his death aged 57 – his wife left him and students elected him Rector of Glasgow University . Sheppard died at home in Paternoster Row and his funeral in St Paul's Cathedral drew huge crowds. He

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768-474: A speaking engagement at St Martin-in-the-Fields. She attended the engagement, but afterwards found she had fractured her left arm and broken the little finger of her right hand. These injuries began a physical decline in which her mind became more confused and withdrawn. Around this time, the BBC interviewed her; when asked of her memories of Roland Leighton, she replied: "Who is Roland"? Brittain never fully got over

832-538: A year as secretary to Cosmo Lang , then Bishop of Stepney . He volunteered to serve in the Second Boer War : however, an injury sustained while en route to the railway station rendered him permanently disabled and unable to serve. He studied for the ministry at Cuddesdon College and was ordained priest in 1908. Returning to work with the poor at Oxford House, in 1910 he suffered the first of what would prove to be recurrent breakdowns due to overwork. With

896-776: Is buried in the cloisters at Canterbury Cathedral . The character of the priest Robert Carbury in Vera Brittain 's novel Born 1925 is based on Sheppard. There is a memorial chapel named after Sheppard at St Martin-in-the Fields. The former office of the Peace Pledge Union was called Dick Sheppard House. An altar cross and candlesticks were presented as a memorial in Sheppard's name to Guildford Cathedral in 1957 by his friends and family. Vera Brittain Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970)

960-666: The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament , even though CND was not a pacifist-only organisation and, at least in its early days, was less focused on direct action. Some recovery in the PPU's fortunes took place after 1965, when Myrtle Solomon was general secretary. The PPU organised protests against the US war in Vietnam and handed out leaflets to US tourists in Britain stating "not only are Vietnamese being killed, but American men are dying for

1024-603: The Peace Pledge Union as sponsor. Following six months' careful reflection, she replied in January 1937 to say she would. Later that year, Brittain also joined the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship . Her newly found pacifism, increasingly Christian in inspiration, came to the fore during the Second World War , when she began the series of Letters to Peacelovers . She was a practical pacifist in

1088-583: The Sudetenland as legitimate. At the time of the Munich crisis, several PPU sponsors tried to send "five thousand pacifists to the Sudetenland as a non-violent presence", however this attempt came to nothing. Peace News editor and PPU sponsor John Middleton Murry and his supporters in the group caused considerable controversy by arguing Germany should be given control of parts of mainland Europe. In

1152-662: The " Gang of Four " rebels on the Social Democratic wing of the Labour Party who founded the SDP in 1981. Like Brittain, George Catlin was raised Anglican, as his father was an Anglican clergyman, but unlike her, Catlin had converted to the Catholic Church . Brittain's first published novel, The Dark Tide (1923), created scandal as it caricatured dons at Oxford, especially at Somerville. In 1933, she published

1216-543: The 1970s this group campaigned for the withdrawal of the British army, as well as the disbandment of both Republican and Loyalist paramilitary groups. The Peace Pledge Union's 21st-century activity has included taking part in British protests against the 2003 Iraq War . In 2005, the PPU released an educational CD-ROM on Martin Luther King's life and work that was adopted by several British schools. In recent years,

1280-504: The Attorney-General, Donald Somervell KC. They were defended by John Platts-Mills and were convicted but not imprisoned. The PPU Council voted by a majority to withdraw the poster in question, although this seems to have been a controversial decision within the PPU. Other PPU members were also arrested, for holding open-air meetings during the war and selling Peace News in the street. In 1942, PPU General Secretary Stuart Morris

1344-526: The Dutch Christian anarcho-pacifist Bart de Ligt . He called for war to be made impossible by direct action, including "the most effective non-co-operation, boycott and sabotage". Not all PPU members were happy with this approach and the booklet was withdrawn from sale in London. In February 1940, the Daily Mail newspaper called for the PPU to be banned. While the government decided not to ban

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1408-605: The First World War commemorations. The film also starred Kit Harington , Colin Morgan , Taron Egerton , Alexandra Roach , Dominic West , Emily Watson , Joanna Scanlan , Hayley Atwell , Jonathan Bailey and Anna Chancellor . David Heyman (producer of the Harry Potter films ) and Rosie Alison were the producers. On 9 November 2018, a Wall Street Journal opinion commentary by Aaron Schnoor honoured

1472-571: The Nazi press's claims that far worse offences than the Kristallnacht events were a regular feature of British colonial rule". But David C. Lukowitz argues that, "it is nonsense to charge the PPU with pro-Nazi sentiments. From the outset it emphasised that its primary dedication was to world peace, to economic justice and racial equality," but it had "too much sympathy for the German position, often

1536-579: The No More War Movement, became president of the PPU, holding the post until his death in 1940. In 1937 a group of clergy and laity led by Sheppard formed the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship as an Anglican complement to the non-sectarian PPU. The Union was associated with the Welsh group, Heddwchwyr Cymru , founded by Gwynfor Evans . In March 1938, PPU George Lansbury launched the PPU's first manifesto and peace campaign. The campaign argued that

1600-456: The October 1941 issue of Adelphi magazine: "Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively, the pacifist is pro-Nazi". Following the fall of France , support for the PPU dropped considerably and some former members even volunteered for the armed forces. The PPU abandoned

1664-524: The PPU campaigned against the bombing of German civilians and was one of several groups to back the Bombing Restriction Committee (most of whose members were not pacifists or even opposed to the war as a whole). The Birmingham branch of the PPU declared, "We pacifists, while determined to resist the Nazi system, believe that nothing can justify the continuation of this slaughter and the moral degradation that it involves". Throughout

1728-797: The PPU has focused on issues including Remembrance Day, peace education, the commemoration of World War One and what they describe as the "militarisation" of British society. The PPU's most visible contemporary activity is the White Poppy appeal, started in 1933 by the Women's Co-operative Guild alongside the Royal British Legion's red poppy appeal . The white poppy commemorated not only British soldiers killed in war, but also civilian victims on all sides, standing as "a pledge to peace that war must not happen again". In 1986, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher expressed her "deep distaste" for

1792-546: The PPU newspaper Peace News and that of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), saying, "occasionally when reading Peace News , I (and others) half think we have got hold of the Blackshirt [BUF journal] by mistake". There was Fascist infiltration of the PPU and MI5 kept an eye on the PPU's "small Fascist connections". After Dick Sheppard's death in October 1937, George Orwell , always hostile to pacifism, accused

1856-541: The PPU of "moral collapse" on the grounds that some members even joined the BUF. However, several historians note that the situation may have been the other way around; that is, BUF members attempted to infiltrate the PPU. On 11 August 1939, the Deputy Editor of Peace News, Andrew Stewart, criticised those "who think that membership of British Union, Sir Oswald Moseley's Fascist organization, is compatible with membership of

1920-457: The PPU were "arch-appeasers" who had supported the absorption of the Low Countries into Germany's sphere of influence. This was denied by the PPU representative on the programme, who stated that the PPU had campaigned against arms sales to Fascist regimes when the UK government was selling weapons to Mussolini . Initially, the Peace Pledge Union opposed the Second World War and continued to argue for

1984-409: The PPU". In November 1939, an MI5 officer reported that members of the far-right Nordic League were attempting "to join the PPU en masse". Historians have differed in their interpretation of the PPU's attitude to Nazi Germany. The historian Mark Gilbert said, "it is hard to think of a British newspaper that was so consistent an apologist for Nazi Germany as Peace News ," which "assiduously echoed

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2048-595: The PPU, a number of PPU members faced arrest and prosecution for campaigning against war. In May 1940, six leading PPU activists—Alex Wood, Stuart Morris, Maurice Rowntree, John Barclay, Ronald Smith and Sidney Todd—were charged over the publication of a pacifist poster that was aimed at encouraging people of all nationalities to refuse to fight. The charge read out in court was that they "did endeavour to cause among persons in His Majesty's Service disaffection likely to lead to breaches of their duty". They were prosecuted by

2112-572: The PPU, with some members resigning as they objected to the use, or what they saw as the too frequent use, of methods of civil disobedience. However, members of PPU were well represented in the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) founded in 1957, which organised the first of the Aldermaston marches in 1958. In practice, however, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the PPU lost some members to

2176-577: The United Kingdom". In 1938 the PPU opposed legislation for air-raid precautions and in 1939 campaigned against military conscription . Like many in the 1930s, the PPU supported aspects of appeasement , with some members suggesting that Nazi Germany would cease its aggression if the territorial provisions of the Versailles Treaty were undone. It backed Neville Chamberlain 's policy at Munich in 1938, regarding Hitler's claims on

2240-608: The bestsellerdom of Testament of Youth on both sides of the Atlantic, she was invited to speak at a vast peace rally at Maumbury Rings in Dorchester , where she shared a platform with various pacifists, including sponsors of the Peace Pledge Union , the largest pacifist organisation in Britain: Dick Sheppard , George Lansbury , Laurence Housman , and Donald Soper . Afterwards, Sheppard invited her to join

2304-597: The churchyard of St James the Great, at Old Milverton in Warwickshire. Brittain was portrayed by Cheryl Campbell in the 1979 BBC2 television adaptation of Testament of Youth . Songwriter and fellow Anglican Pacifist Fellowship member Sue Gilmurray wrote a song in Brittain's memory, titled "Vera". In 1998, Brittain's First World War letters were edited by Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge and published under

2368-723: The death in June 1918 of her beloved brother, Edward. She died in Wimbledon on 29 March 1970, aged 76. Her will requested that her ashes be scattered on Edward's grave on the Asiago Plateau in Italy – "...for nearly 50 years much of my heart has been in that Italian village cemetery" — and her daughter honoured this request in September 1970. Some of Brittain's ashes were buried in 1979 in the grave of her husband Sir George Catlin in

2432-489: The fashionable and high-profile living at St Martin-in-the-Fields , turning the church into an accessible social centre for all those in need. He married Alison Lennox, who had nursed him during his breakdowns, in 1915. From 1924, when Sheppard provided the first service ever broadcast by the BBC , his broadcast sermons gave him national fame. However, another breakdown and acute asthma led to his resignation in 1926. Having become

2496-592: The focus on peace negotiations. PPU members instead concentrated on activities such as supporting British conscientious objectors and supporting the Food Relief Campaign. A few members of the PPU joined the Bruderhof in the Cotswolds, which was seen as a radical peace experiment. This latter campaign attempted to supply food, under Red Cross supervision, to civilians in occupied Europe. From 1941,

2560-624: The idea of a war to defend democracy was a contradiction in terms and that "in a period of total war, democracy would be submerged under totalitarianism". A large part of the PPU's work involved providing for the victims of war. Its members sponsored a house where 64 Basque children, refugees from the Spanish Civil War , were cared for. PPU archivist William Hetherington writes that "The PPU also encouraged members and groups to sponsor individual Jewish refugees from Germany , Austria and Czechoslovakia to enable them to be received into

2624-523: The impact the war had on them. Plaques marking Brittain's former homes can be seen at 9 Sidmouth Avenue, Newcastle-under-Lyme ; 151 Park Road, Buxton ; Doughty Street , Bloomsbury ; and 117 Wymering Mansions, Maida Vale , west London. There is also a plaque in the Buxton Pavilion Gardens , commemorating Brittain's residence in the town, though the dates shown on the plaque for her time there are incorrect. Vera Brittain's archive

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2688-599: The onset of war , Sheppard spent some months as chaplain to a military hospital in France, before being sent home with exhaustion. He had joined the chaplaincy soon after war was declared. Bishop Gwynne , who became deputy chaplain-general on the Western Front, wrote of Sheppard, 'He is a man of real magnetic power and has left his living of St Martin's-in-the-Fields to come out with the Australian hospital'. Sheppard wrote to Lang of his experiences, "I've sat in

2752-470: 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. The PPU assembled several noted public figures as sponsors, including Aldous Huxley , Bertrand Russell , Storm Jameson , Rose Macaulay , Donald Soper , Siegfried Sassoon , Reginald Sorensen , J. D. Beresford , Ursula Roberts (who wrote under

2816-421: The poetry of the First World War, including Brittain's poem "Perhaps". On 7 July 2023, Buxton Festival staged the first of a run of performances of The Land of Might-Have-Been , a musical show drawing on existing songs by Ivor Novello , presenting a fictionalised version of Brittain's life in 1914 and 1915, and exploring her relationships with Roland, Edward and Edward's (fictional) gay lover Bobbie Jones, and

2880-482: The product of ignorance and superficial thinking". Research by the historian Richard Griffiths , published in 2017, suggests considerable division and controversy at the top of the PPU, with the editors of Peace News being generally more willing to play down the dangers of Nazi Germany than were many members of the PPU Executive. Controversy over the PPU's attitude towards Nazi Germany has continued ever since

2944-515: The pseudonym "Susan Miles") and Brigadier-General F. P. Crozier (a former army officer turned pacifist). The PPU attracted members across the political spectrum, including Christian pacifists , socialists , anarchists and in the words of member Derek Savage , "an amorphous mass of ordinary well-meaning but fluffy peace-lovers". In 1937 the No More War Movement formally merged with the PPU. George Lansbury , previously chair of

3008-427: The publication of the PPU leaflet Atom War . In 1947, the PPU voted to make a priority of campaigning for the abolition of conscription (known in law as National Service). Conscription in the UK was phased out from 1960 and ended completely in 1963. In the 1950s, the PPU paid more attention to ideas of nonviolent civil disobedience, as developed by Mohandas Gandhi and others. This was not without controversy even within

3072-585: The sense that she helped the war effort by working as a fire warden and by travelling around the country raising funds for the Peace Pledge Union's food relief campaign. She was vilified for speaking out against saturation bombing of German cities through her 1944 booklet, published as Seed of Chaos in Britain and as Massacre by Bombing in the United States. In 1945, the Nazis' Black Book of nearly 3,000 people to be immediately arrested in Britain after

3136-781: The summer of 1915 to work as a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse for much of the First World War . She served initially at the Devonshire Hospital in Buxton, and later in London, Malta and in France. While stationed close to the front at Etaples, her experience nursing German prisoners of war significantly influenced her journey towards internationalism and pacifism. Roland Leighton, who became her fiancé in August 1915, close friends Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow, and finally her brother Edward were all killed in

3200-568: The title Letters from a Lost Generation . They were also adapted by Bostridge for a BBC Radio 4 series starring Amanda Root and Rupert Graves . Because You Died , a new selection of Brittain's First World War poetry and prose, edited by Mark Bostridge, was published by Virago in 2008 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Armistice. On 9 November 2008, BBC One broadcast an hour-length television documentary on Brittain as part of its Remembrance Day programmes hosted by Jo Brand titled A Woman in Love and War: Vera Brittain , where she

3264-460: The war, Vera Brittain published a newsletter, Letters to Peace Lovers , criticizing the conduct of the war, including the bombing of civilian areas of Germany. This had 2,000 subscribers. By 1945, membership of the PPU had fallen by more than a quarter, standing at 98,414 when the war ended (compared to around 140,000 in 1940). Since 1945, the PPU has consistently "condemned the violence, oppression and weapons of all belligerents". Immediately after

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3328-399: The war, especially in respect of her attitudes towards the war, which were more conventional in 1914–18. In the 1920s, Brittain was a widely published journalist, in Time and Tide and many other newspapers and journals. At this time, she also became a regular speaker on behalf of the League of Nations Union , supporting the idea of collective security. However, in June 1936, in the wake of

3392-414: The war, there was a focus on support for famine relief in Europe and elsewhere. The PPU condemned the use of nuclear weapons against Japan in August 1945 and in October 1945, prominent PPU members were among the signatories to an open letter asking what the moral difference was between mass killing by Nazis in concentration camps and mass killings by atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was followed by

3456-438: The war. Many of their letters to each other are reproduced in the book Letters from a Lost Generation . In one letter, Leighton speaks for his generation of public-school volunteers when he writes that he feels the need to play an "active part" in the war. Returning to Oxford in 1919 to read history, Brittain found it difficult as "a war survivor" to adjust to life in postwar society. She met Winifred Holtby at Somerville, and

3520-468: The war. In 1950, Rebecca West , in her book The Meaning of Treason , described the PPU as "that ambiguous organisation which in the name of peace was performing many actions certain to benefit Hitler". The publishers removed the phrase from subsequent editions of the book following representations by the PPU, but West refused to apologise. As recently as 2017, the right-wing commentator and retired colonel Richard Kemp alleged on Good Morning Britain that

3584-977: The white poppies, on allegations that they potentially diverted donations from service men, yet this stance gave them increased publicity. In the 2010s, sales of white poppies rose. The PPU reported that around 110,000 white poppies had been bought in 2015, the highest number on record. Members of the PPU have included: Vera Brittain , Benjamin Britten , Clifford Curzon , Alex Comfort , Eric Gill , Ben Greene , Laurence Housman , Aldous Huxley , George Lansbury , Kathleen Lonsdale , Reginald Sorensen , George MacLeod , Sybil Morrison , John Middleton Murry , Peter Pears , Max Plowman , Arthur Ponsonby , Hugh S. Roberton , Bertrand Russell , Siegfried Sassoon , Myrtle Solomon , Donald Soper , Sybil Thorndike , Michael Tippett and Wilfred Wellock . [REDACTED] Media related to Peace Pledge Union at Wikimedia Commons Dick Sheppard (priest) Hugh Richard Lawrie Sheppard CH (2 September 1880 – 31 October 1937)

3648-407: The work for which she became famous, Testament of Youth , followed in 1940 by Testament of Friendship — her tribute to and biography of Winifred Holtby —and Testament of Experience (1957), the continuation of her own story, which spanned the years between 1925 and 1950. Brittain based many of her novels on actual experiences and actual people. In this regard, her novel Honourable Estate (1936)

3712-454: Was a director of family-owned paper mills in Hanley and Cheddleton . Her mother was born in Aberystwyth , Wales , the daughter of an impoverished musician, John Inglis Bervon. When Brittain was 18 months old, her family moved to Macclesfield , Cheshire , and 10 years later, in 1905, they moved again, to the spa town of Buxton in Derbyshire . As Brittain was growing up, her only sibling, her brother Edward , nearly two years her junior,

3776-411: Was an English Anglican priest, Dean of Canterbury and Christian pacifist . Sheppard was the younger son of Edgar Sheppard , a minor canon at the Royal Chapel of All Saints in Windsor, and Mary White. Born at the Cloisters in Windsor, he was educated at Marlborough College and then (1901–1904) Trinity Hall, Cambridge . He worked with the poor from Oxford House , Bethnal Green and then for

3840-469: Was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir Testament of Youth recounted her experiences during the First World War and the beginning of her journey towards pacifism. Born in Newcastle-under-Lyme , England, Vera Brittain was the daughter of a well-to-do paper manufacturer, (Thomas) Arthur Brittain (1864–1935) and his wife, Edith Mary (Bervon) Brittain (1868–1948). Her father

3904-421: Was autobiographical, dealing with her failed friendship with the novelist Phyllis Bentley , her romantic feelings for her American publisher George Brett Jr, and her brother Edward's death in action on the Italian Front in 1918. Brittain's diaries from 1913 to 1917 were published in 1981 as Chronicle of Youth . Some critics have argued that Testament of Youth often differs markedly from Brittain's writings during

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3968-706: Was her closest companion. From the age of 13, she attended boarding-school at St Monica's, Kingswood, Surrey where her mother's sister, Aunt Florence (Miss Bervon), was co-principal with Louise Heath-Jones, who had attended Newnham College, Cambridge . After two years as a "provincial debutante", Brittain overcame her father's objections and went up to Somerville College, Oxford , to read English Literature. By this time, war had broken out and Brittain had become close to Roland Leighton , one of her brother's friends from Uppingham School . Finding her Oxford studies increasingly an irrelevance as her male contemporaries volunteered for war, Brittain delayed her degree after one year in

4032-405: Was portrayed by Katherine Manners . In February 2009, it was reported that BBC Films was to adapt Brittain's memoir Testament of Youth into a feature film . Irish actress Saoirse Ronan was cast to play Brittain at first. However, in December 2013, it was announced that Swedish actress Alicia Vikander would be playing Brittain in the film, which was released at the end of 2014 as part of

4096-441: Was sentenced to nine months in prison for dealing with secret government documents relating to British rule in India, which he was alleged to have been planning to pass to Gandhi or others in the nonviolent wing of the Indian independence movement. The trial was held in secret. The PPU Council disassociated itself from Morris' actions. The critical attitude towards the PPU in this period was summarised by George Orwell , writing in

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