Environmental campaigns in Leicester
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The work of William Morris and the Arts & Crafts Movement highlighted a number of environmental issues connected with the visual degeneration of towns and countryside. Morris supported pressure groups such as the Commons Preservation Society founded in 1865 and the Kyrle Society founded ten years later.
A Leicester branch of the Kyrle Society was set up in 1880 to improve the urban environment including the planting of public gardens and trees. Many of Peach’s friends were involved including Sydney Gimson, president of the Kyrle from 1913 to ‘15, Benjamin Fletcher, and William Pick. Peach became a fervent campaigner on environmental issues, taking up the issue of ‘town tidying’ and promoting Leicester, with its reputation for good lettering and printing, as a model for what could be achieved. He worked with existing societies such as the Leicestershire Footpaths Association, the Literary and Philosophical Society and the Rotary Club as well as the Kyrle and used his numerous and influential contacts to raise awareness. In 1924 the work of Peach and his associates in Leicester was applauded in an article in The Spectator:
‘Fine, intelligently designed shops and factories are being built, the smoke evil has been checked, the city’s historical or beautiful ancient buildings are being acquired by the public, and a real standard of taste is being set up in all sorts of arts and crafts.’
The inhabitants were also credited with ‘a really extraordinary thirst for good education and good lettering’.
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Peach encouraged the DIA to become involved in environmental issues. In 1928 they were one of numerous organisations and pressure groups that Peach brought together for a conference in Leicester. This conference was the inspiration for the nationwide ‘Save the Countryside’ exhibition and campaign which concentrated on the disfigurement of the landscape by litter and thoughtless advertising. Peach persuaded a number of major firms including Shell to limit their advertising and ran a successful campaign to persuade the Leicester trams to install litter boxes for tickets. He inspired a variety of organisations including the Women’s Institute, the Ramblers Association and the Council for the Preservation of Rural England to back his campaign and, by looking for realistic projects, made people believe that his ideas were achievable.