The First World War produced Britain’s first major anti-war movement. Conscientious Objectors (COs) were a collection of individuals who refused to fight. Although there were organisations such as the No-Conscription Fellowship, it was up to the individual, at enormous personal sacrifice, to make the protest. This meant facing alone the combined strength of the judiciary, the military, the government, and the vast majority of public opinion.
Changes to attitudes and laws as a result of their protest were not brought about by an inspired or brilliant individual who forced change. There were no leaders of the movement as such, although there were prominent individuals. It was the accumulative action of ordinary citizens that made the difference.
Conscription
The war began in July 1914 and by the end of 1915 the horrific number of casualties meant that there were no longer enough volunteer soldiers to maintain the armed forces. In January 1916 the government passed the Military Service Act, which introduced conscription for single men between the ages of 18 and 41. There were exemptions for those deemed unfit for service, those who worked as teachers and clergyman, or did certain types of industrial work. A second Act was passed in May 1916 to include married men.
Anyone refusing to fight, or who believed they should be exempted from military service, had to appear before a tribunal. The people sitting on these tribunals were largely unsympathetic to COs and very few were granted exemption. Unfortunately, nearly all the papers regarding the tribunals have been destroyed, so it is difficult to build an accurate picture of their workings.
Refusing to fight
There were two main reasons why 16,600 men refused to fight. The largest group were religious objectors, yet few belonged to the Church of England or the Catholic Church. The Quakers, with their belief in human brotherhood, were the most well-known group, but many others were involved, including Christadelphians, Plymouth Brethren, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other non-conformist churches. The second largest group were political objectors. Mainly socialists, they condemned the war as a conflict between capitalist countries fighting to further their own interests at the expense of the working class.
Conscientious Objectors fell into three main categories:
- The Absolutists, who refused to have anything to do with the war, arguing that any work would be a contribution to the war effort.
- The Alternativists, who were prepared to do civilian work, but not for the military.
- The Non-Combatants, who agreed to join the army but would not bear arms. They served mainly in the ambulance service and as stretcher bearers.
Conscientious objectors were derisively known as Conchies and were often branded as cowards. However, they made significant sacrifices. Many Non-Combatants were killed or wounded while helping others; Alternativists were often sent far from their families to do unpleasant and menial jobs; and Absolutists were usually sentenced to hard labour in prison.
One man’s story
One Absolutist, Evelyn Wilfred Harbord, suffered a particularly tragic fate. Harbord was a 28-year-old teacher from Ipswich in Suffolk. He received his call-up papers in April 1917. Why, as a teacher, he was not exempt is unknown.
A tribunal declared Harbord was not exempt from combat and he was sent to a combat unit in Suffolk. It is unknown why he refused to fight, but he was court-marshalled on 30 April 1917 for refusing to obey orders and sentenced to six months hard labour in Wormwood Scrubs Prison in London. At the end of May 1917, he went on hunger strike.
There are no records of his time in prison, but just a month later, on 26 June 1917, he was declared insane and transferred to Hanwell Asylum in West London. He was deemed unfit for military service and discharged from the army. He was moved to St Clement’s Hospital in Ipswich on 6 August 1917, where he died on 16 September 1917 from pulmonary tuberculosis and valvular heart disease. There was no post mortem.
Harbord, an apparently healthy individual, suddenly deteriorated and died within six months. We will never know how much his treatment in prison contributed to his death, but it seems very likely that it was a major factor in his sudden decline. Prisoners who went on hunger strike were routinely force fed by having a tube inserted either through the nose or via the throat. It can be assumed Harbord suffered a similar fate.
It is estimated that 73 COs died as a result of their treatment, and many others endured varying degrees of long-term physical and mental illness. Absolutists, after completing their initial six-month sentence, often received fresh prison terms; 819 spent more than two years in prison.
Changing attitudes
Neville Chamberlain, who was Prime Minister from 1937-40, served on a tribunal in the First World War. He later stated: “It was a useless and exasperating effort to attempt to force such people to act in a manner contrary to their principles.” Furthermore, if the principles were “conscientiously held, we desire that they should be respected, and that there should be no persecution.”[1]
The composition of the tribunals changed for the Second World War. There was no longer a military representative on the panel; the chairman now had to be a lawyer, and every panel had to have a trade union member and, if the CO was a woman, also a female member.
The stand taken by the First World War COs therefore did have a lasting impact. By 1939 it was accepted that some people held views or had principles that meant they could not take up arms against fellow human beings. These later COs were not subjected to the harsh and often cruel treatment that was meted out to those of the previous generation. In Britain, at least, there were no more Evelyn Wilfred Harbords, who suffered so much, just because he refused to fight.
By David Harbord, a U3A Shared Learning Project researcher for the Citizens Project
[1] The Times, 5 May 1939.
