Julia Grace Wales

Julia Grace Wales (14 July 1881 – 15 July 1957) was a Canadian academic known for authoring the Wisconsin Plan, a proposal to set up a conference of intellectuals from neutral nations who would work to find a solution for the First World War.

Early life

Wales was born on 14 July 1881 in Bury, Eastern Townships, Quebec to Benjamin Nathaniel Wales, a physician - graduate of McGill University in 1874 - and his wife Emma Theodosia (née Osgood), who had married in 1878. Benjamin Nathaniel Wales was the first president of the Historical Society of Argenteuil County, and the grandson of Benjamin Wales, founder of the first paper mill in Canada.

Peace activism

By December 1914, Wales had become horrified and physically sickened by the First World War reports coming from Europe. A close friend of hers wrote that "the pity and horror of it seized upon her". Convinced that the war was both irrational and un-Christian, Wales published her views and a solution for the end of the war in a pamphlet entitled "Continuous Mediation Without Armistice", popularly known as the Wisconsin Plan. Her plan was to have the United States organize a conference of intellectual mediators from neutral nations, who would receive suggestions from the belligerent nations while at the same time discussing possible solutions to the war.

The plan was endorsed by several anti-war and peace movements, as well as by the Wisconsin Legislature. As a delegate, Wales represented the Wisconsin Peace Society at the International Congress of Women, held at The Hague in April 1915. She thus became a founding member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. As a member of the conference's embassy, Wales took her proposal, adopted as a resolution of the conference, to European governments. Her plan failed when the United States entered the war in April 1917, and she returned to North America to resume her academic career.