Pat Arrowsmith, who has died aged 93, was a prominent direct action campaigner for peace and a range of radical causes. Best known for her role in organising the first Aldermaston march against nuclear weapons, at Easter 1958, she put her life and liberty on the line many times. She was imprisoned a dozen times and twice named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, an organisation for which she worked from 1970 until her retirement in 1994.
She was active in the Committee of 100, founded in 1960 by Bertrand Russell and the Rev Michael Scott, which organised mass sit-downs against nuclear weapons in city centres and military bases, the Troops Out movement that campaigned from the early 1970s for British military withdrawal from Northern Ireland, and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, of which she was twice a vice-president.
