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Leeds, a Workshop for Peace

Together for Peace was ten years old in 2012 and a very different organization from when it first started. In the beginning, in 2002, Leeds played host to a national congress, “Jesus in the City,” in which delegates were invited to explore sites of “success and separation” in the city; one such was the Royal Armouries Museum. One of the organizers, Hilary Wilmer, tried to persuade Rev. David Hawkins, Vicar of St. George’s Church and an Anglican pacifist, to meet Guy Wilson, the Master of the Royal Armouries. Wilson was keen to develop links into the city, including with the churches. On principle, Hawkins had not paid a visit to the Armouries and was reluctant to, but when they met they discovered a mutual love of the arts (Hawkins being a visual artist, and Wilson a poet and lyricist). The Royal Armouries had commissioned Karl Jenkins to compose music to Wilson’s libretto for the Millennium. “The Armed Man, a Mass for Peace” has proved immensely popular, often being at Classic FM’s number one spot in the following years. The piece had been performed at the Royal Albert Hall, but never in Leeds. Hawkins and Wilson planned to hold a gala performance in the autumn of 2003 and to use it as the centerpiece of a small festival including a poetry competition and other events. St. George’s, as a city-center church, was well connected in the city, not in the least through its work with St. George’s Crypt and the homeless. Hawkins and Wilson enlisted several organizations to get involved including: Oxfam, Leeds Church Institute, Leeds Metropolitan University’s Praxis Center, several businesses, Leeds Faiths Forum, and Leeds City Council’s Peace and Emergency Planning Department. The timing was important—this was soon after 9/11; the “war on terror” rhetoric was heating up; there had been unprecedented street protests at the plans to invade Iraq; and Islamophobia was on the rise. Additionally, Leeds had recently seen the