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Conscription and conscience100 years of conscientious objection

2 the Friend, 26 February 2016

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Cover image: Image from a postcard highlighting the plight of conscientious objectors. Photo courtesy of Leeds University Library.

CoNTENTS VoL 174 No 09

3 Thought for the Week: Objection sustained David Boulton

4-5 2 March 1916: D-day for conscientious objectors David Boulton6-7 Archive photographic montage8-10 The politics of conscription and conscience David Boulton

11 Manifesto of the No-Conscription Fellowship

12-13 Letters: a hundred years ago Compiled by Janet Scott

14 See more, hear more, read more Ian Kirk-Smith

15 A pacifist in Israel Symon Hill

16-17 Where are we now? Rachel Brett

18-19 q-eye: a hundred years ago

20-21 Hubert Peet Ian Kirk-Smith

22 Masters of their own souls Arnold S Rowntree

23 Poem: Conscientious Objector Edna St. Vincent Millay

24-25 News

28 Friends & Meetings

This special issue of the Friend commemorates the centenary of the day the first Military Service Act began to be implemented, with the rounding-up of men who had been refused the absolute exemption

from military service which their conscience demanded.

One hundred years later the issues of conscience and conscription are still alive in a war-torn world.

Remembering 2 March 1916

3the Friend, 26 February 2016

Thought for the Week

I am honoured to have been invited to guest-edit this special edition of the Friend, and I thank Ian Kirk-Smith and his hard-working team for helping me put it together.

I hear the muffled sound of head-scratching by some readers. Today, in our own time, millions of refugees are fleeing what some are calling ‘mini-world war three’. John Greenleaf Whittier’s ‘stormy clangour / Of wild war music’ is being played out in a deafening crescendo. So, why focus on a small group of peacemakers a hundred years ago who faced the music, defied the men of war and paid the price?

One reason is that past and present are intricately linked. As Rachel Brett points out on page sixteen, world war one conscientious objectors (COs) planted the seeds of what became a worldwide movement for human rights. If humankind aspires to ‘tread out the baleful fire of anger / And in its ashes plant the tree of peace’, the establishment of universal human rights must be a key component in the settlement of national conflicts. We’ll have our COs – Quakers and churchmen, radical Liberals and socialists – to thank for that.

In 2014 we ensured that in the national commemoration of world war one the COs would not be forgotten. On 27 January this year Friends organised a meeting at parliament to commemorate the passing of the first Military Service Act, and celebrate the inclusion of the Quaker-inspired conscience clause. Next Wednesday, 2 March, is the centenary of the day the Act was implemented and, in defiance of the conscience clause, the first conscientious objectors were arrested. They were the first of many whose objection was overruled, but nevertheless sustained in prison, military detention and under the threat of the firing squad.

Today’s peacemakers face no such threats, but we have mountains to climb. Much of the strength of the world war one peace movement lay in the inspired coalition of political and religious activists in the joint action committee of the No-Conscription Fellowship and the Friends Service Committee. Today we have the making of a similar coalition in the campaign to turn Trident submarines and their deadly nuclear warheads into peaceful ‘ploughshares’. There are now political peacemakers in high places. Friends who hold to our historic Peace Testimony will surely stand with them.

What better way to honour the men who first heard the policeman’s knock on the door on 2 March 1916?

Objection sustained

David Boulton, guest editorKendal & Sedbergh Area Meeting


The five weeks between the passing of the Military Service Act 1916 on 27 January and implementation day on 2 March saw a frenzy

of activity as the government made the necessary preparations for the social revolution which compulsion entailed. The War Office was instructed to organise new Non-Combatant Corps to accommodate conscientious objectors (COs) willing to support the war effort without bearing weapons. Local councils were instructed to set up tribunals to assess the sincerity of those pleading conscience. And out in the country the No-Conscription Fellowship, the Friends Service Committee and local peace groups, which had fought and lost the battle against conscription but won the battle for a conscience clause, organised rallies, circulated leaflets and marched under the conjoined banners of the Red Flag and the Prince of Peace.

Treated as deserters

At 6 o’clock on the morning of 2 March policemen around the country, armed with a list of names of men who had applied but been refused exemption, began knocking on their doors. So began an almost ritualised sequence of events which continued week after week for the rest of the war, first for the unmarried men, then, after a second Act, married men, and, finally, older men up to the age of fifty-one.

The charge was that, having received their call-up papers and failed to respond, they had, nevertheless, been deemed to be soldiers and were therefore liable to be treated as deserters. Following the knock on the door, the policeman would escort his man, first to the

local recruiting office, then to the police station where he would spend the night in custody. Next morning he would be brought before the magistrate who would hear evidence from the recruiting officer or policeman before being fined £2 for failing to report under the Military Service Act.

He would then be handed over to a military escort who would take him to the barracks where he had been ordered to report. There he was ordered to change into uniform, sign his paybook and obey routine orders. On refusal to wear uniform, take army pay or obey orders, he was charged with disobeying lawful commands and placed in military detention.

Handed over

A vivid and wryly amusing account of the whole process was written shortly after the war by a young Liberal solicitor, Scott Duckers, who had formed a Stop the War Committee in the autumn of 1914. Duckers was one of the relatively few COs whose conscientious objection extended to a refusal to accept the right of any tribunal to judge his conscience. He never applied for exemption, but exempted himself. Nevertheless, his name was on the wanted list, and in his book Handed Over he described what happened to him.

‘On Tuesday, April 11, on walking up the stairs to my office in Chancery Lane, I saw two stalwart men in plain clothes, one of whom accosted me and asked if I were Mr Scott Duckers. I said “Yes” and he then intimated that he would “like a word with me”. I knew what this meant, and leading the way into my private room, asked them to sit down and state their business.

Centenary

2 March 1916: D-day for

conscientious objectors

Drawing on the memoirs of Scott Duckers, David Boulton reports on the knock on the door that told conscientious objectors they were now

‘deemed to be soldiers’

Scott Duckers portrait taken from his book Handed Over.


The spokesman opened a copy-book and, showing me a card inside, said that he was a police sergeant of the G Division and that he wished to ask me some questions under the Military Service Act. I said that I declined to answer any questions and asked if he had a warrant for my arrest. He replied in the affirmative, and pulled a paper out of his pocket. All this was done very pleasantly and courteously by the officer.’

Duckers explained that he was due in court at Lambeth where he was due to attend a case, and one of the policemen agreed to share a taxi with him. Having said goodbye to everyone in his office, and emptied his pockets of ‘a few things it was no use taking to gaol’, he and the sergeant took the taxi to Lambeth, then, when the case was over, on to Bow Street court for a hearing before a magistrate. ‘But we found the police there would not have anything to do with us. It was not their job, and anyway the court was full that afternoon.’

So, chatting pleasantly, he and the sergeant walked through London to Vine Street court. ‘Here they consented to take the charge, and a large sheet of yellow paper was produced, my name written upon it and the charge, which was that, being [deemed to be] a member of the Special Reserve of His Majesty’s Army, I had absented myself when called to the colours for permanent service. What had I to say? I said that I did not admit being under the Military Service Act. Down went this in the official notebook.’

Then, after lunch with his police escort, they moved on to Marlborough Street court, where he secured a remand on recognisances of £10. A week later he was back in court, prepared to defend himself, but the magistrate declared that he ‘could not enter into the defendant’s views’. He was found guilty of failing to report, fined £2, and taken under military escort to Old Scotland Yard, a temporary army barracks.

‘Drastic measures’

‘The escort took me across the courtyard into a small office, where I saw a fine, alert, soldierly looking man with a wide stretch of ribbons across his breast. “Well sir”, he said, “you’ve been through the police court. Now it’s my duty to make you a soldier.” “And I think it my duty to refuse to be one,” I replied. “Oh, we’ll see about that,” he rejoined pleasantly. “I’ve had some thousands through my hands, and they’ve all settled down quietly in the end.”’

Duckers refused to supply details of name, age and address, and the officer’s mood began to change. ‘You’ve made your protest, done all you can, but you’re in the Army, and I can tell you it will be very, very uncomfortable for you if you make useless trouble.’ The solicitor deemed to be a soldier still refused to answer questions or undress for a medical examination. ‘At this

they professed to lose patience with me. In the Army, if a man refused to obey an order, force was employed. They would be sorry to take drastic measures, but…’

No result. So ‘I was taken away… to the guardroom, where I gave up my umbrella but was not searched.’ Still wearing his solicitor’s uniform of silk hat and black coat, he was removed to a cell thirty feet long, fifteen wide and twelve high, which already housed five prisoners. ‘It was an abominable, disgraceful place, unfit for occupation by any human soul… Along one wall were ranged four folding plank beds (one so much broken as to be quite useless) and a filthy, corroded bucket three parts full of urine. This was the only convenience in the place, and the floor round about it was in a very objectionable condition… The whole place smelt abominably, and the floor was used as a general spittoon.’

Four years hard labour

The following morning he was told that, despite his refusal to submit to medical examination, he was deemed fit for general service and would be sent to Winchester for enrolment in the Rifle Brigade. In Winchester, still refusing to put on uniform or obey orders, he was sentenced by court martial to twelve months hard labour, commuted to ninety-eight days detention. Still resisting, he was again sentenced to twelve months hard labour, during which he continued to defy the authorities, which earned him a third sentence, this time two years hard labour. He was still serving his sentence months after the war ended.

At his third court martial he told his judges: ‘The more I see of the Army the less I like it, and the greater is my determination to show that the punishments by which you are accustomed to subdue the spirits of soldiers are quite ineffective against anyone who knows his own mind and will continue steadfast. Whatever happens to me personally, I know that I have done something to maintain those principles of freedom which can only be preserved by individuals, and which will, perhaps more quickly than you think, successfully reassert themselves against all the muddle, waste, mismanagement and blundering incompetence of modern militarism, which these ridiculous trials help to illustrate.’

From 2 March on, thousands of COs went through the procedures Scott Duckers describes – though by no means all will have experienced the very British courtesies initially accorded to an articulate lawyer! Young lads fresh from school or the family farm will have needed even more resilience than Duckers showed. Some suffered indignities and brutalities that Duckers escaped. Some buckled under the strain, some went all the way. None would ever forget that knock on the door, on or after 2 March 1916.


Archive

Top: COs at Dyce work camp, Scotland, closed in October 1916 as unfit for human habitation (courtesy of Leeds University Library). Below: Four of the women who helped run the Friends Service Committee and No-Conscription Fellowship – clockwise from top left: Marian Ellis (Sir John Lavery via Wikimedia Commons), Ada Salter (Southwark Local History Library and Archive), Joan Mary Fry (copyright the Library of the Religious Society of Friends) and Catherine Marshall in 1916 at the time of her visit to Clifford Allen in Newhaven Military Prison (Wikimedia Commons).


Above top left: COs put to work in Dartmoor prison (courtesy of The Peace Pledge Union). Above top right: T Edmund Harvey, Quaker Liberal MP who drafted the conscience clause with Arnold S Rowntree (copyright the Library of the Religious Society of Friends). Below: men and women of the non-combatant Friends Ambulance Unit at one of their train hospitals in France (copyright the Library of the Religious Society of Friends).

Conscription and conscience


To conscript or not to conscript was one of the key issues Britain was faced with in the first world war. To allow or not to allow exemption for conscientious

objectors was another. Both issues were fiercely debated in the country but ultimately determined in the political arena. Quakers and others whose primary motivation was religious or moral had to engage politically if their voices were to be heard and effective.

The politics of conscription and conscience, as understood in modern terms, began in the shadow of the Boer war. In 1902 a group of aristocrats including the dukes of Wellington, Argyll and Westminster and the bishop of Chester founded what became the National Service League, calling for the compulsory enlistment into the army or navy of men of military age.

The League had an early success, lobbying for a royal commission which in 1903 recommended a scheme of compulsory service. However, the Conservative prime minister Arthur Balfour rejected it on the grounds that it would add £25 million to the Army Estimates. He also doubted, with good reason, that it would be acceptable at that time to the electorate.

Winston Churchill, then a Liberal, was an early opponent. ‘Conscription,’ he told the House of Commons, ‘would no doubt be of some use in providing occupation for members in another place [the Lords] who have not got much to do, but it cannot be said seriously to enter into the practical politics of the country’. (He was to change his mind a few years later).

By 1910 the membership of the National Service League had grown to 60,000 and by 1912 to 315,000 including ‘adherents’. League members returned to parliament in the 1910 general election numbered 155, almost all Conservatives.

In 1913, as war fever mounted, the Lords debated a proposal by Richard Verney, lord Willoughby de Broke, for conscripting ‘gentlemen’ only, as an example to the lower classes. In support, Auberon Herbert, lord Lucas, described this as ‘the most thorough-going example of

the rich serving the poor since Christ first preached the principle’. It was defeated by fifty-three to thirty-four votes.

In the country the Daily Mail, the most powerful of the popular newspapers, agitated for general conscription. It quoted a contemporary writer on military affairs, doctor H Miller: ‘Peace or no peace, I’d have every man trained to arms. If there was never to be another fight I’d drill every male thing. By George, I’d have universal military training in heaven!’ Despite the jingoistic press clamour, the public remained suspicious of compulsion as a foreign innovation, inimicable to fondly-held notions of ‘British liberty’.

‘The badge of the slave’

The situation at the outbreak of war, then, was that the Conservatives, in opposition, were calling for conscription; most of the Liberals, under Herbert Asquith, defended the voluntary system; and the forty-odd Labour MPs, including seven members of Keir Hardie’s Independent Labour Party (ILP), were strongly opposed. Hardie wrote: ‘Compulsory military service is the negation of democracy. It compels the youth of the country, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, to learn the art of war. This is despotism, not democracy. No liberty-loving people will tolerate having these old forms of servitude forced upon them. Conscription is the badge of the slave.’

In May 1915 bitter divisions within Asquith’s war cabinet led to the formation of a coalition government with the Conservatives. Key posts were now in the hands of leading members of the National Service League. Asquith continued to favour voluntary enlistment and brought the Labour leader Arthur Henderson into his government, along with three other Labour MPs, to forestall a pro-conscription majority.

The conscriptionists now sought a back door to compulsion and put forward a scheme requiring all

Centenary

The politics ofconscription and conscience

David Boulton describes how the rival campaigns for and against conscription lined up, in and out of parliament


men of military age to register their employment and, crucially, ‘attest’ their willingness to join the army if called to do so. Asquith and Henderson fell into the trap, going along with the scheme as nothing more than a test of the voluntary system. But the man commissioned to organise it was Edward Stanley, lord Derby, on record as writing before the war: ‘Conscription may be a nasty pill to swallow, but what’s in a name? Let’s call it universal service.’

‘A homeopathic dose…’

Under pressure, Asquith publicly promised that no married men would be conscripted before single men. This effectively conceded that the Derby Scheme would prove a first step into conscription. By the end of 1915, Asquith, Henderson and most of the anti-conscription party had been manoeuvred into supporting a Military Service Bill, claiming that it would be limited and temporary, containing no more than what Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, lord Lansdowne, called ‘a homeopathic dose of compulsion’!

Meanwhile…

Out in the country the anti-conscriptionists had been warning against the drift to compulsion and organising against it. Only three months after the outbreak of war the editor of the Labour Leader, Fenner Brockway, founded the No-Conscription Fellowship (N-CF). Clifford Allen was its first chairman and Quakers Edward Grubb and Alfred Salter joined a group of ILP men on its

organising committee. Its aims were simple: to prevent conscription if possible, and organise conscientious resistance to any Military Service Act based on compulsion. The N-CF ultimately claimed some 10,000 members and nearly a hundred local branches. (See the N-CF Manifesto on page 14.)

The Religious Society of Friends was at first divided over support for the war. Many young Quakers enlisted voluntarily, supported by two Conservative Quaker MPs, Frank L Harris and Alfred Bigland. Others joined the newly-formed Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) running hospital trains in occupied France and Belgium. Ironically, it was conscription that united pro- and anti-war Quakers. Whether it was right or wrong to support the war effort, Friends agreed that the State had no right to compel men to fight and kill. London Yearly Meeting supported the formation of a Friends Service Committee (FSC) led by Hubert Peet, consisting of young Friends of military age who committed themselves to refuse to accept

compulsory service, whatever the consequences. The FSC joined the N-CF in a Joint Action Committee which became the powerhouse of resistance to military service.

Drafting the conscience clause

Over Christmas 1915 Asquith’s warring cabinet finally agreed the terms of what would become the first Military Service Act, requiring single men between eighteen and forty-one to enlist in the army within five weeks of the Act receiving royal assent. It was also a busy Christmas for two Quaker Liberal MPs, Arnold Rowntree and T Edmund Harvey, who drafted the historic clause allowing exemption on grounds of conscience: the first such clause to be enacted by any government in the world.

Rowntree and Harvey noted that the draft Bill allowed for locally based tribunals to grant ‘absolute, conditional or temporary exemption’ to men in vital occupations such as mining, munitions and agriculture. They met with Asquith on or about 28 December and persuaded him to add that: ‘…exemption on conscience grounds may take the form of exemption from combatant service only, or may be conditional on the applicant being engaged on some work which in the opinion of the Tribunal dealing with the case is of national importance.’

The clause was not greeted with unanimous delight. The Conservatives immediately dubbed it a shirkers’ charter, and the N-CF and FSC pointed out its glaring ambiguities. The clause could be read as giving the tribunals power to grant conscientious objectors absolute

Members of the No-Conscription Fellowship surrendering to the police at Mansion House, 17 July 1916. Left to right: Clifford Allen (visitor); A Barratt Brown, A Fenner Brockway; Hubert W Peet (visitor) and John P Fletcher. Photo copyright the Library of the Religious Society of Friends.


Centenaryexemption, as it did for men in vital occupations, or just ‘combatant service only’, conditional on accepting alternative work of national importance.

These ambiguities, no doubt resulting from hasty drafting in politically-charged circumstances, would lead to months of confusion. Government circulars and statements intended to clarify the issue only led to more confusion as they contradicted each other, leaving the interpretation of the clause at the mercy of the tribunals. Some allowed absolute exemption, many restricted any exemptions they gave to combatant service only.

The Bill received its first reading in the Commons on 5 and 6 January 1916, when it passed by 403 votes to 105. Half of those against were Irish Nationalist MPs. On the second reading on 12 January the opposition shrank to forty-one as the Irish Nationalists abstained on receiving assurances that conscription would not be applied to Ireland. On the third reading on 24 January the number opposing the Bill dropped to thirty-eight.

The following day the Bill moved to the Lords, where the bishop of London led opposition to the conscience clause, declaring that ‘conscience was of little consequence until it was educated’. But the Bill went through, conscience clause and all, and on 27 January it received the royal assent and became the law of the land. By custom, two weeks passed before the Act was Proclaimed, then another three before it became operative. That took it to 2 March.

Deemed to be soldiers

Over those five weeks all single men between eighteen and forty-one who were not already in the army received in the post War Office Form W3236 instructing them to enlist by 2 March or be dealt with as wartime deserters. They could apply for exemption to the tribunals, but those who failed would be ‘deemed to be soldiers’ whether they agreed or not.

The tribunals were hastily re-assembled from those formed a few months earlier for the Derby Scheme, or newly created. They consisted of local worthies – mayors, councillors, the parson, a military representative – appointed by local authorities. Few had any legal training or any understanding of the psychology of conscientious objection. John Rae, in Conscription and Politics, a book written to counter what he regarded as the left-wing bias of the no-conscription movement, nevertheless wrote of the tribunals: ‘Not since lord Jeffrey’s Bloody Assize have judicial bodies left to posterity a reputation so closely identified with bias and injustice.’

According to the Conscientious Objectors’ Information Bureau, closely allied with the N-CF, some 16,100 men applied for exemption on conscience grounds – a figure now regarded by some researchers as an underestimate of one or two thousand. Probably no more than 200

were granted absolute exemption, perhaps about half of whom were Quakers. Some 640 conditional exemptions were granted to FAU members in France (not all of whom were Quakers), another 440 to men in its ‘General Section’, and another 300 or so to FAU men in British hospitals. 3,964 accepted ‘work of national importance’ under the Pelham Committee, and another 900 under the direction of the tribunals. About 300 took alternative service in the Friends War Victims Relief Committee or the military’s Royal Army Medical Corps.

‘Our lives are forfeit’

3,300 accepted service in the Non-Combatant Corps, not including men who refused but were forcibly enlisted there. 6,261 defied the tribunals’ refusal to grant them absolute exemption and spent the war in prison, military detention or Home Office work camps. These were the absolutists who were to bear the brunt of the persecution that followed. Some 650 were still in prison in May 1919, the last not released till August after the triple alliance of miners, railwaymen and transport workers threatened to strike unless they were freed.

The Joint Action Committee of the No-Conscription Fellowship, Friends Service Committee and Fellowship of Reconciliation did heroic work exposing the brutalities and degrading treatment of the COs in prison, and those sent to the front line in France where they faced the death penalty for refusing to obey orders. Their office was constantly raided, its leaders imprisoned, its printing presses smashed.

Seventy-three COs are known to have died in prison or as a direct result of the harsh treatment they received. But Clifford Allen, the N-CF chair, whose own health had been permanently impaired by ill-treatment in jail, wasn’t one to claim martyrdom either for himself or for the war resisters’ movement. At the final winding-up of the N-CF at the Quaker headquarters Devonshire House in London in November 1919 he told his audience of 1,500 COs: ‘It seems to me that every one of us must be only too conscious of how terrible is the comparison between the anguish of those who have died and been mutilated in war and the test to which we have been subjected… Not one of us would dare to compare our suffering with that of the men who were actually engaged in warfare. Many of them are dead, but we still have the opportunities of life before us. Our lives are now forfeit.’

Other movements picked up the torch from the N-CF and FSC: War Resisters’ International in 1921, the Peace Pledge Union in 1934. And Friends continue to say as they did to Charles II in 1661: ‘All bloody practices we do utterly deny, with all outward wars, and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatoever, and this is our testimony to the whole world.’


The case for and against compulsory military and munition service is being argued by many who, for reasons of age or sex, would not be

subject to it. The signatories to this Manifesto think it imperative to voice a protest in the name of a large body of men in this country who, though able-bodied and of military age, will – in the event of coercive measures – be bound by deep conscientious conviction to decline these services, whatever the consequences of the refusal.

We yield to no-one in our admiration of the self-sacrifice, the courage and the unflagging devotion of those of our fellow-countrymen who have felt it their duty to take up arms. Nevertheless, we cannot undertake the same forms of service; our conviction is solemn and unalterable.

Whatever the purpose to be achieved by war, however high the ideals for which belligerent nations may struggle, for us ‘Thou shalt not kill’ means what it says. The destruction of our fellow-men – young men like ourselves – appals us; we cannot assist in the cutting-off of one generation from life’s opportunities. Insistence upon individual obligations in the interests of national well-being has no terrors for us; we gladly admit – we would even extend – the right of the community to impose duties upon its members for the common good, but we deny the right of any Government to make the slaughter of our fellows a bounden duty.

We have been brought to this standpoint by many ways. Some of us have reached it through the Christian faith in which we have been reared, and in our interpretation of which we plead the right to stand loyal. Others have found it by association with international movements; we believe in the solidarity of the human race, and we cannot betray the ties of brotherhood which bind us to one another throughout the nations of the world.

All of us, however we may have come to this conviction, believe in the value and sacredness of human personality, and are prepared to sacrifice as much in the cause of the world’s peace as our fellows

are sacrificing in the cause of the nation’s war.Believing it is the imperative duty of every citizen

to serve his country, we are eager to render national service through such occupations as shall help to build up the life and strength of our country without inflicting loss on that of other people.

We have not emphasised the objections to Conscription which are widely held by many who do not share our views on war. There are many who are now exposing the folly of forced service from the military standpoint; there is the vast body of Trade Unionists who view with suspicion the agitation of the National Service League and the Conscriptionist Press, and see in it a menace to the working class; there are experts who demonstrate that the revolution entailed would undermine the financial and commercial stability which is not the least valuable asset this country offers to the Allied Powers; there are the advocates of national unity who for that reason alone deprecate the raising of so disruptive an issue; and finally there are those whose objections are held on the ground of the great traditions and liberties of our country.

We, too, recognise to the full the grave dangers to those liberties and those traditions in the present agitation for Conscription, and especially as it must affect the workers of the nation, but first and foremost our decision rests on the ground of the serious violation of moral and religious convictions which a system of compulsion must involve.

We believe the real inspiration that prompts all efforts towards progress is a desire that human life may become of more account. This ideal we cannot renounce; its claim is absolute.

The Manifesto was signed by Clifford Allen, chairman; Fenner Brockway, honorary secretary; Edward Grubb, honorary treasurer; and a committee consisting of A Barratt Brown, A Sutherland Campbell, William Chamberlain, J H Hudson, Morgan Jones, C H Norman and Leyton Richards. Grubb, Barratt Brown and C H Norman were Quakers, and Richards represented the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Manifesto

No-Conscription FellowshipIn September 1915, as conscription loomed, the No-Conscription Fellowship national committee issued 100,000 copies of its Manifesto declaring the Fellowship’s ‘solemn and unalterable’ refusal to fight, whatever the consequences.


Letters Selected by Janet Scott

Conscientious Objection…A number outside our Society who feel it wrong to take human life are prepared to undertake service under the military authority which does not involve this, and a number of Friends have already taken the same view; a very large number are eager to do service which does not promote the military ends of the war; while some conscientious objectors, whose view I am not able to share, feel that they cannot agree to undertake any specific service which the State may require of them in war time, lest by so doing they should contribute to its greater efficiency in war. There are also those who feel a Divine call to the particular work on which they are engaged, and cannot lay this aside to take up other duties at the demand of the State. It is well that we should realise these different standpoints…

T Edmund Harvey21 January 1916

For alternative serviceI hope that Friends will very carefully consider their position before they reject the suggestion of Alternative Service in connection with the Conscience Clause in the present Army Bill. The recognition of the universal duty to give public service is one of the most satisfactory developments of religious life during the last one or two generations, and it appears to me that the repudiation of any form of alternative service may seriously endanger the position already reached in this direction.

It seems almost impossible to select any form of public service which is quite free from the charge of assisting the war, and on the other hand the non-combatant work of the army and its allied auxiliaries carries with it much that is useful from a civil standpoint, and the refusal to take part in any of these directions as an alternative will, I think, be regarded by most people as an unnecessary and futile straining after complete consistency. At present there are many people who, while they do not share the views, respect the sincerity of others who refuse to fight. The attitude of those who decline any alternative service will go far to jeopardise this respect…

William Darby21 January 1916

Against alternative serviceIt seems to me of the utmost importance that Friends should not be induced into any position which would imply acquiescence in a system of Compulsory Military Service.

The Meeting for Sufferings has expressed its appreciation of the attempt made by Mr Asquith to meet the conscientious objector, at the same time pointing out that the provisions of the present Bill do

not meet the case at all. Doubtless as a result of this and other representations made, the Government has made further concessions to those who object to the Bill on conscientious grounds. Whilst ready to admit that much has been gained by the recognition of the rights of conscience on the part of the Government, it is well to make clear that the most generous terms will never make any measure of Conscription acceptable to Friends. We cannot acquiesce in a system which compels our fellow-men to preform a service which we ourselves are not prepared to undertake…

It is not an easy matter for us to stand outside the main stream of opinion on this matter, but our highest sense of loyalty to our nation, to humanity and to Jesus Christ our Lord impels us to take this stand. We realise that something fundamental is at stake. The liberties of England are threatened. Our most cherished convictions are challenged. We must help to save the soul of our nation and of humanity. We must join with all those who affirm the rights of conscience and the absolute supremacy of God over the whole area of human life and conduct.

Robert Davis28 January 1916

‘Let us think little of ourselves’…Certainly let us strive hard for exemption for all our people from military service or any kind of service that directly helps forward the error, the folly and wickedness of war, but “exemption” for ourselves and ours, is surely a small matter compared with the passion of prayer and effort that should be with us daily for this war to cease and that the nations learn war no more.

George Rose4 February 1916

‘A passion of goodwill’I have received the circular addressed by the Friends’ Service Committee to men of military age in which young men are advised “to claim complete exemption from the provisions of the Act.” I am given to understand that this is not intended to prejudge the question of “alternative service,” a term which I prefer to discard entirely in terms of the Act. It is suggested that those who are ready to undertake work “of national importance,” at the suggestion of the tribunal or otherwise, should first claim absolute exemption in order to strengthen the hands of others who cannot conscientiously accept any such service. This idea seems to me quite false. I write as one who, as far as I at present see, could not change my occupation at the suggestion of the tribunal, because I believe what I am doing is the work to which I have been called by God…

I would not, of course, urge any man to go beyond


The Friend welcomes your views.

Do keep letters short (maximum 250 words).

Please include your full postal address, even when sending emails, and specify whether you wish for your postal or email address or Meeting name to be used with your name.

Letters are published at the editor’s discretion and may be edited.

In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty,

in all things charity.

[email protected]

what his conscience permits, but I do feel that the free offering of such service as we can render will go far to show that we are meeting the difficulty with “a passion of goodwill”. In true national service we can point to that better way which alone can lead us away from war. I know there are those who feel that even to offer such service under the Act is virtually consenting to the principle of compulsion. Those who may suffer for this conviction need our sympathy and support. Those who do not have this conviction would, I believe, do well to consider what service they can render and forthwith offer it…

Henry T Hodgkin11 February 1916

‘Cheerfully accept non-combatant service’Permit me to remark that instead of there being grumbling at the generous provisions in the Act for the relief of conscientious objectors to combatant service, Friends especially should openly and officially express their anxiety and willingness cheerfully to accept alternative service which they can conscientiously perform for our King and country in the awful struggle with German wickedness and Prussian militarism.

Never before has any nation engaged in a great war made such a reasonable provision as is now on the Statute Book in favour of those who truly believe our Saviour forbids His followers to engage in war.

We should be thankful that hundreds of the younger members of our Society have shown their patriotism by their cheerful, gratuitous and noble devotion to ambulance, hospital and many other descriptions of work on the Continent and at home, labouring for the relief of suffering caused by the war, and have thus shown to their fellow members a splendid Christian example which should be willingly followed.

John Pim25 February 1916

Insincere extremists?…There seems to me a measure of insincerity about some of the extremists. They pay taxes, much of which goes to the prosecution of the war; they comfortably accept the protection our sailors and soldiers provide us with; at every meal they use some of the delicacies that come to us through the protection of our navy; every night they sleep in safety, thanks to their risking and even giving their lives for us; and to share these benefits and to go out of the way to make difficulties, to me seems most ungrateful and unpatriotic.

Why not be consistent and refuse to pay taxes and suffer the consequences, or refuse to take any of the comforts that are provided by the protection of our

navy, and live upon just sufficient bread and water to sustain life?…

Cephas Butler3 March 1916

The Adjourned Yearly Meeting and our young men…I am sure that [for] the vast majority of those who had the privilege of being present through those wonderful days it was a time of extraordinary power and inspiration. We felt that after these long years of waiting for a real spiritual revival, the call had come at last to our Society and that the day of our visitation had dawned. The splendid spirit of our young men assured us that the call of God would meet with a response.

Several of your correspondents take a different view. I confess to a feeling of sorrow that any Friends could be at such a gathering and remain untouched by its enthusiasm and hope…

But my object now is not to argue but to make an appeal. Our young men are passing through a time of difficulty and testing such as has not been since the early days of our Society. They are meeting the emergency with brave spirits and a constancy born of a new spiritual enthusiasm. Some of them are going further than, some not so far as, their friends may desire. But they are acting along the line of our fundamental peace testimony. Is it too much to hope that we may cease from criticism, from pouring cold water on the flame of God’s kindling, and offer them instead our loving sympathy and warm support?…

Many of them will be upholding the standard before unsympathetic Tribunals as these lines are being read. Let us who have not to face the ordeal uphold their hands before God.

William Littleboy3 March 1916


Exhibitions

See more,hear more,read more

Throughout 2016 a number of exhibitions in different parts of Britain and online are commemorating the varied experience of

conscientious objectors (COs) in the first world war.

Matter of Conscience: Quakers and conscription is the latest online display presented by Library of the Religious Society of Friends, at Friends House, and will be launched on the one hundredth anniversary of the day the Military Service Act came into force on 2 March 1916. It is compiled from the enormous archive collection held by the Library relating to the activities of Friends during the first world war. To compliment the online exhibition there will be two displays at Friends House in London. These will open on 1 May in time for Conscientious Objectors Day on 15 May.

Leeds University Library is hosting an exhibition, On Conscientious Grounds: Objection and resistance in the first world war, that runs until 30 July. It presents the first-hand experience of the men and their families and friends, through letters, artwork, diaries, postcards and personal items. The political background to their beliefs is shown through government documents introducing conscription and the reaction to it from pacifist organisations. The display also highlights the public reaction to the men who refused to take part in war.

An imaginative exhibition based on recordings of COs from the world war one, organised by the Quaker Arts Network, will be held at The Light, Friends House, between 18 August and 2 September.

The exhibition is entitled Echo Chamber and is being compiled and curated by artist Fiona Meadley, who regularly works with archives. She is concerned with those stories that echo through time.

Fiona says: ‘During my research into world war one conscientious objectors it’s been wonderful to come

across hours and hours of interviews conducted by the Imperial War Museum. And somehow I find it easier to tune into these leisurely conversations conducted in 1974 than trawling through some of the more formal materials written a hundred years ago.

‘What am I looking for? Visceral memories that resonate. Mark Hayler could still remember the sound of the governor’s footsteps, clanging four flights up the metal staircase to his cell. And when the governor said “I’ve got men like you down the dungeon,” Mark recalls he was past caring – “it’s funny, once you’ve burnt your boats…”

‘Dorothy Bing helped me understand the quiet suffering of families that continued long after the war ended. Her mother had come from a close family, but her sisters never spoke to her again after her son became a CO.’

Following the end of world war one local govern-ment boards were instructed to destroy the records of conscientious objectors’ tribunals. Only a small number of official records survived. From 10 March 1916 onwards, however, the Friend published weekly reports of Friends and others appearing before tribunals – selecting cases from around the country to reflect the full range of conscientious objectors’ experiences. Lists of members and attenders were published which indicated their names, Meetings and the results of their cases. Later this expanded to include the sentence and location of any imprisonment, court martial or hard labour. All of this can be found in The Friend 1914-1918 Digital Archive (see page 26).

The latest instalment of The white feather diaries – a social media storytelling project by Britain Yearly Meeting that follows the stories of five pacifists during world war one – will be launched on 29 February.

Members of the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) training at Jordans, Buckinghamshire. The FAU were non-combatants who wore uniforms (see also page 7).

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Ian Kirk-Smith reports


Interview

A pacifist in Israel

Symon Hill talks to Taya Govreen-Segal, one of the few conscientious objectors exempted from army service by the Israeli government

As a teenager in Tel Aviv, Taya Govreen-Segal was taken by her school on a Holocaust remembrance trip to Poland. She returned with

a determination to refuse to join the Israeli army. ‘What happens on those trips is that there’s a very

strong narrative of “never again”,’ explains Taya. The message was ‘we’ll do everything in our power so that no-one will ever harm the Jewish people again’. She added, ‘That kind of makes the whole trip very militarised.’

While on the trip, Taya started to think about how the Holocaust could have been stopped.

‘I started reading about conscientious objectors and thinking that actually the way to stop awful things happening is for people to follow their conscience.’

Now aged twenty, Taya already sounds like a veteran of Israeli peace activism. Nearly all Jewish Israelis are conscripted at the age of eighteen.

‘I started thinking about not going into the army when I was fourteen,’ says Taya. ‘I already realised I was a pacifist.’

Taya’s parents were liberal-minded but not pacifists. So what made her a pacifist?

‘I think I was born a pacifist,’ she says, laughing. ‘As far back as I can remember, I just didn’t understand violence.’

As her eighteenth birthday loomed, Taya wrestled with her conscience: Should she join the army as a paramedic or refuse altogether?

‘I could have gone and been a paramedic,’ she says. But she came to believe that this would mean ‘being part of forces that legitimise violence as a way of solving problems and conduct oppression of Palestinians’.

There are several grounds on which an Israeli can be exempt from conscription, including mental or physical health. Taya says, ‘It was very important to me

to say the truth and I decided to go the hardest route, to declare I’m a conscientious objector.’

Only a small number of Israeli women – and no men – are exempted on grounds of conscience every year. Taya puts the figure at around twenty. Most Israeli objectors are not pacifists but refuse to take part in the occupation of the Palestinian Territories. These ‘political objectors’ are never exempted on conscience grounds.

To her relief, the military committee that questioned Taya decided she was a genuine pacifist. ‘I very much fitted the stereotype,’ she explains. ‘I told them that I do yoga and meditate. I was vegan.’

What if the committee had said no? ‘I was going to go to prison,’ says Taya. ‘Some days I wonder if I’d actually go through with that.’

Many of Taya’s friends have done just that. Sentenced to a month in prison for refusing to put on uniform, they are released, re-conscripted, refuse to comply and are returned to prison again. Taya urges Quakers to support imprisoned conscientious objectors by sending them letters, using details available on the website of War Resisters’ International (WRI).

Now working as an intern at the WRI office, Taya has found herself talking with peace activists all over the world.

‘I love working with other pacifists,’ she explains. ‘I can email someone in Sudan and get a reply within a few hours explaining the situation of conscription there. And I know that there are activists working on the same kind of things that I’m working on in all these different places.’

Her face lights up as she talks about it. ‘I find that really encouraging,’ she adds. ‘We can work together and give each other a lot of hope.’

Symon is a Christian pacifist who attends Quaker Meetings in various places.

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Friends worked with other nongovernmental organisations at the United Nations for over fifty years to gain recognition of the right of

conscientious objection to military service. It was a slow and frustrating process, with many setbacks but ultimately successful.

Conscientious objection to military service is now recognised as a human right at both the international (UN) and European levels. Specifically, the European Court of Human Rights in 2011 ruled (Bayatyan v Armenia) that it is part of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion (article nine of the European Convention on Human Rights), following on from the earlier recognition of this by the UN Human Rights Committee (Yoon and Choi v Republic of Korea, 2007), which is the body supervising the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Although various other international and regional human rights bodies had already stated that this was the case, these individual cases removed any remaining doubt about the matter.

Universal recognition

This recognition as a human right is significant for a number of reasons.

All states in the world are bound by one or more human rights treaties, which recognise the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This gives conscientious objection universal recognition. It is not a matter of choice for a specific government or military whether to provide for conscientious objectors.

It means that this is a right applicable to all persons – it is not a group exemption for certain religious bodies such as Quakers, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mennonites, and cannot be limited to members of such groups

(though such membership may be good evidence of the individual’s position in this respect). This applicability to all on an individual basis was one of the significant aspects of the conscience provision in Britain’s Military Service Act 1916.

This right is also applicable at all times because the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion is a non-derogable right (one that cannot be opted out of). The 1916 Military Service Act is a useful precedent and reminder for others that it is precisely in times of war or national emergency that it is essential to provide for conscientious objection.

Without discrimination

Because human rights have to be applied without discrimination, the basis for an individual’s conscientious objection is not a valid criterion for distinction – a non-religious pacifist objection is as valid as one from the ‘traditional’ peace churches or from a religion that does not intrinsically espouse a pacifist position.

Not only may there be no discrimination in recognising conscientious objectors, but their treatment may not be discriminatory in relation to those who do military service. If they are required to do an alternative service its duration, terms and conditions have to be equivalent to the military service and not punitive. (It also has to be of a civilian character and under civilian control). In any case, conscientious objectors may not subsequently be subjected to discrimination in relation to any economic, social, cultural, civil or political rights because they have not done military service.

Finally, on the legal aspect it is important to note that a person may become a conscientious objector at any time (clearly because there is a right to change one’s religion or belief). The right must therefore be available

Reflection

Where are we now?

Rachel Brett, former representative on human rights and refugees at the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva, reports on conscientious objection legislation around the world today


to conscripts even after they have begun military service; it applies to those who have joined voluntarily and to reservists.

The legal position is therefore very clear. Unfortunately, not all countries yet apply the law in practice although there has been a steady increase in recognition and improvement in treatment of conscientious objectors.

‘Civil death’

In some countries there is still no recognition of conscientious objection at all, in particular: South Korea (where between 500 and 700 young men go to prison each year for their objection), Singapore, Eritrea (one of the causes of the outflow of so many young men and women from that country as refugees), Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Turkey. In Israel young men and women continue to be repeatedly imprisoned for their conscientious objection as well as suffering legal and societal discrimination.

Finland, whose provision is not yet fully compatible with the international human rights standards, has a good provision in that even those conscientious objectors who go to prison do not get a criminal record. It is important to be aware that acquiring a criminal record may be one of the consequences of being an unrecognised conscientious objector, which

may have serious and continuing effects in relation to employment and in other areas.

Too often, even when people understand that being a conscientious objector may have immediate consequences they tend to be unaware of the longer term implications – what the European Court of Human Rights has described in the Turkish cases as a situation tantamount to ‘civil death’, where lack of a valid identity document means inability to legally marry, register the birth of your child, gain employment, travel and so on.

In Colombia only recently (thanks to the Constitutional Court applying the international standards) have young men become able to graduate from university without producing a military identity document.

Finally, a different problem relates to the lack of provision of information about the right to conscientious objection and how to claim it, even in countries where it is recognised. This includes the paucity of information in the UK about provision for professional service people: information about this possibility and the procedure for it should be readily available to all serving and reserve military personnel.

Rachel is a member of Southern East Anglia Area Meeting and attends Geneva Monthly Meeting, Switzerland.

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CATHERINE MARSHALL at the No-Conscription Fellowship (N-CF) office devised a cunning plan to help conscientious objectors (COs) communicate with each other and cheat the silence rule. Every member awaiting arrest was provided with pencil leads, a sticking plaster and instructions for smuggling them into his cell. New prisoners were strip-searched, but one part of the body that wasn’t routinely inspected was the soles of their feet, so the instructions were to place the pencil leads there and seal them with the plaster.

It was not without risk. When Fenner Brockway stepped into his hot bath prior to being searched at Walton jail he discovered to his horror that the leads were of the indelible variety which stained the water purple. Every time he moved a foot a burst of purple swirled around it. When his warder noticed, Brockway complained that too much disinfectant had been put in the bath water! He contrived to keep the precious leads – and used them to good effect.

He began producing a weekly newspaper, the Walton Leader, using toilet paper collected from his ‘subscribers’, who each contributed their daily ration of one sheet. The paper was passed from prisoner to prisoner to be read in the privacy of the lavatory.

On press days – Mondays and Thursdays – there was always a queue at the ‘reading room’. The medical officer was instructed to enquire into the diet on Mondays and Wednesdays, but before he could make his report the newspaper was discovered and its editor sentenced to six days on bread and water.

COs in other jails produced their own handwritten journals – Quaker Barratt Brown’s Canterbury Clinker celebrated the surreptitious communications of the exercise periods:

‘Gin a conchy meet a conchyComin’ through the Clink,Gin a conchy meet a conchyShould a conchy wink?Ilka conchy has a comrade,Ne’er a one hae I;

But all the comrades smile at me,Comin’ on the sly.’

William Chamberlain’s Winchester Court Martial carried a mock advertisement for a ‘Special War Edition of the New Testament sanctioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which every reference to peace has been deleted’.

What the papers couldn’t sayQUAKERS AND SOCIALISTS (and many COs were both) worked together on the N-CF monthly Tribunal, but by 1918, with the men in prison, production of the paper was largely in the hands of women. Joan Beauchamp took over as editor, supported by Lydia Smith, Gladys Rinder and Ada Salter.

The 14 February issue carried an article by Joan Beauchamp entitled ‘The Moral Aspect of Conscription’, which protested against the provision of licensed brothels for soldiers in France, and lumping together licensed prostitution and conscription as twin evils. The military authorities, having conscripted the flower of the nation’s youth, were now bent on deflowering it. A morally outraged Home Office ordered the police to seize all copies of the paper and dismantle the presses on which it was printed.

The N-CF women found a small press in Streatham and the 11 April issue included an article headed ‘Stop

the War!’ which concluded: ‘Armies and Navies cannot end this war. Who can? Only the people have the power.’ On 22 April six policemen visited the printer’s premises and smashed the press with hammers and crowbars.

Another press was found, but it was so dilapidated and run-down that the compositors kept running out of type. The large capital letters they needed for the masthead were missing, but fortunately someone knew someone who worked on the militantly pro-war Daily Mail, and the letters were ‘borrowed’ from its print-room. Once, however, an ‘r’ was missing, so a messenger was sent to the Mail at night to pick up a replacement. Unfortunately, on his way back he stumbled in the dark and dropped the precious letter. Next morning he retraced his steps, found it, and the N-CF was saved from issuing The Tibunal instead of The Tribunal.

Cunning plans

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[email protected]

Devout scepticBERTRAND RUSSELL offered his services to the N-CF, taking over as chairman when Clifford Allen went to prison. The notorious atheist argued that ‘the distinction between what are called “religious” and what are called “political”

objectors was nothing more than an invention of politicians’, adding that ‘no-one else would have supposed it was impossible to be interested in the affairs of the world in a religious spirit’. He was deeply moved by the selflessness of the

young men who faced prison and army brutality. Their aim, he wrote, was ‘to bring the Kingdom of Heaven on earth – nothing less’. He confessed that his favourite Biblical text was Exodus 23:2: ‘Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil’.

Moment of truthIN ONE PROSECUTION of N-CF leaders under the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) the crown advocate Archibald Bodkin lectured the accused to the effect that ‘war would become impossible if all men were to have the view that war was wrong’.

The N-CF expressed its gratitude for so neat and concise an expression of its own case and proceeded to issue posters with Bodkin’s words, prominently credited to their author. This enraged the authorities, who took the printers to court – with Bodkin again as prosecutor. The N-CF then demanded the arrest of Bodkin as the author of the subversive words, suggesting it was his patriotic duty to prosecute himself. If he went to prison, they promised, the N-CF would contribute to the maintenance of his wife and children.

Not so silent MeetingsQUAKER MEETINGS for Worship in jail were eagerly looked forward to as a precious time together. While most prisoners attended the prison’s Anglican services as a matter of routine, many socialist and nonreligious COs refused to go and listen to the ‘warmongering parson’. But Clifford Allen, the N-CF chair, successfully petitioned the prison commissioners to allow them access to the Quaker chaplain and to Quaker Meetings.

John Graham, the Quaker chaplain at Strangeways, Manchester, welcomed them all – but that was the end of Quaker silence! Half an hour’s respite from the prison’s silence rule was too valuable to waste, and Quakers and socialists spent the time in animated

discussion and eager sharing of news. In Walton and Winchester jails, prisoners in solitary confinement found ingenious ways of communicating with each other. They organised secret ‘telephone codes’, a special prison morse of dots and dashes for each letter of the alphabet. The ‘telephone’ was a hot water pipe which passed through each cell, and messages could be sent by tapping on the pipe. This developed into a sophisticated means of communication whereby news was exchanged and discussed. In Winchester, Clifford Allen played chess with Scott Duckers five cells down. News from the Friend and The Tribunal was quietly, if laboriously, tapped along the line, undetected by warders.

Charlie chaplainsWILLIAM CHAMBERLAIN, recalling services in Winchester jail, reported the chaplain as saying ‘Do as Christ bids you, never mind your conscience!’ Another chaplain argued in one of his sermons that since the apostle Paul was a tent-maker by trade ‘he must have been an army contractor, proud to do

his bit for the Roman empire’. In Wormwood Scrubs the preacher spoke of ‘the Prince of Peace and the brotherhood of man’, and was startled to hear an approving stamping of feet from the COs’ benches which rose to a crescendo and brought the sermon to an early conclusion.

ON 6 SEPTEMBER 1916 the Evening News reported on a ‘Talkative Quaker’. When three members of the N-CF were released from prison it was noted that: ‘Another – a Quaker – is still detained, as through talking he lost the good conduct marks entitling him to a remission of sentence.’

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I expect it is difficult for you to understand why I am not at home with you all. Some day you will understand all about it. The English people and the German people have got angry with each other like two children who want the same toys and hundreds of men are now trying to kill each other.

Now Daddy and Mummy and lots of other people think it is wrong even if another person gets angry with you, for you to get angry with them. The only thing to do, even if they try to hurt you, is to love them and love them all the more. This is why your Daddy says he cannot be a soldier and go and try and kill the daddies of little German boys and girls.

How do you tell your children that you are in prison? How do you explain that you are there because you do not want to fight when millions

of men are laying their lives on the line for their country? Hubert Peet, prompted by conscience, made a

difficult choice: to be an absolutist. It had significant consequences. He was not to live with his family for over two years.

When the first world war began in 1914 he was twenty-eight years old, a journalist on Fleet Street and a leading member of the Socialist Quaker Society (SQS), a forerunner of the present Quaker Socialist Society.

The war and, in particular, the issue of conscientious objection was to have a huge impact on the interpretation of the Quaker Peace Testimony. Peet played a vital role in shaping this story, partly as assistant editor, and then editor, of the SQS magazine, The Ploughshare, which condemned the war as soon as it was declared and played a key role as a platform for anti-war sentiments, and through his work with anti-conscription groups.

The war challenged Friends. How should they respond? There was no clear policy on the Peace Testimony. Many decided to fight. Others served in the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU), which was independent of London Yearly Meeting. The war produced tension

and division among British Friends as each individual discerned what their conscience dictated, and what kind of ‘service’ was acceptable.

At Yearly Meeting in 1915 a committee of twenty male Friends of military age was appointed ‘to strengthen the Peace testimony among Friends of military age’ and ‘to oppose any move toward conscription’, The group was the Friends Service Committee (FSC). It would establish a challenging new version of the traditional Quaker Peace Testimony.

Hubert Peet was appointed secretary of the FSC. At least six of the original members, including its only two officers, were also members of the SQS. An early action of the FSC was to request the 1915 Yearly Meeting to approve a minute recommending that in the event of conscription no exemption be given to Friends that was not equally applicable to non-Quakers. The FSC also denounced ‘any clause providing alternative service to military service’. A course was set, principles laid down.

Military Service Act

In 1916, when the Military Service Act was introduced, Peet was thirty years old and married with a young family. As local tribunals began assigning Quakers to the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) while denying that option to non-Friends, the FSC condemned the granting of ‘preferential treatment’ to Friends. This was the beginning of a serious split between the FSC and leaders of the FAU. Each represented a different generation, the younger mostly supporting the more radical FSC.

For many moderate Quakers the FAU exemplified the Society’s efforts to provide useful national service while avoiding open support for the war. The widening split between generations over the FAU was a further indication of the FSC’s role in pushing the Society towards a version of its Peace Testimony that was ‘completely non-cooperation as well as non-resistance’.

As secretary of the radically anti-conscription FSC,

Centenary

Hubert PeetIan Kirk-Smith, editor of the Friend

(2010 – present), writes about a fellow editor,Hubert W Peet (1932-1949)

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Peet took an absolutist position, rejecting not only non-combatant service in the army but also alternative civilian work. In early June 1916 he went to France and visited those imprisoned in the Non-Combatant Corps Camp, including the thirty-four conscientious objectors who were about to be sentenced to death. Peet met the Quaker pacifist Howard Marten, whose death sentence, along with the others, was eventually commuted to ten years hard labour.

On 5 August Peet appeared before the Lewisham Military Service Tribunal. He asked for absolute exemption but was offered a non-combatant certificate as he was not ‘doing work of national importance’ and would not promise to do it if referred. He appealed. On 19 September he again refused to accept anything other than to work with the Friends’ War Victims Relief and was referred back to the tribunal.

He then became an absentee, was arrested, tried, fined, and handed over to the military. He was court martialled at Hounslow on 23 November, where he was sentenced to 112 days hard labour at Wormwood Scrubs. At the court marshal a local paper reported him as saying that ‘He had disobeyed and must disobey all military orders because of his conviction that all warfare, and not merely killing, was wrong and contrary to the principles of love taught by Jesus Christ’.

Prison experiences

By January 1919, when Peet was released on medical grounds, he had served three sentences and spent more than two years in jail at Wormwood Scrubs, Wandsworth and Pentonville. His father had died while he was in prison but he was refused permission to attend the funeral. He continued to be involved with The Ploughshare even when incarcerated.

He later described his prison experiences in a book 112 days hard labour. It was one of a number of influential writings about prison conditions in Britain written by COs that contributed to the campaign for prison reform after the war. In his words, the ‘daily prison routine amounted to “calculated, scientific, soulless cruelty”, robbing prisoners of any segment of personal dignity; cruellest of all was the silence system, forbidding prisoners any form of human communication’. Some COs were subjected to brutal treatment and forms of torture. Peet vividly captured the experience of everyday life. He wrote:

‘To prison’ and ‘to isolate’ are practically identical terms. I understood this when, on reaching my cell on the first night, I found my sole remaining links with ordinary life were my spectacles, every shred of clothing and other possessions having been replaced by prison garb. Then the first rule read ‘prisoners

must preserve silence’ and from the moment of entering till that of leaving the prison, to hold the slightest communication with another prisoner renders one liable to punishment.

I worked over ten weeks… alone in my cell in practically solitary confinement. There were … some cases, however, of men working all the time in their cells. In any case, it will be noted that prisoners are entirely isolated for fourteen hours between supper and 6 am. Think what the effect of such life must be on ordinary prisoners who can find no joy in reading after finishing work in the evening, or on the ‘juvenile adult’, the poor little boy thieves … in their teens, during these empty hours.’

Leadership

The FSC militants, a bare majority within the FSC, were intent on making their line of war-resistance the Quaker line, despite the fact that very few Friends took so extreme a position as that of the few Quaker absolutists who chose prison rather than any compromise with the war time state. Some Friends argued, for many years, that the FSC represented only one small faction within the Society and was engaged in ‘political activities of which many Friends did not approve’. A Quaker lawyer, Cecil Whitely, said many Friends did not identify with the ‘glib theorists … now claiming the right to speak for the Society of Friends.’

London Yearly Meeting’s determined opposition to the war, however, and to the introduction of conscription profoundly influenced the Peace Testimony; it became tempered and hardened. Clarity, strength and a backbone was given to twentieth century Quaker pacifism.

While many Quakers felt their conscience called them not to betray their friends and neighbours and join up, and others felt called to serve in nonmilitary ways, it was the small group of absolutists like Hubert Peet, who could not betray a deep and sincere call to their conscience, whose status was to rise.

Quaker historian Thomas C Kennedy has written that just as what one did in the war became a crude litmus test for patriotism, so within the Society of Friends the manner in which one resisted the war provided a rough guide to individual influence during the inter-war period: ‘Those who suffered most, the absolutist conscientious objectors, came to be most highly regarded, and some level of resistance was almost a necessity if a member was to carry any real weight.’

After his imprisonment Hubert Peet gradually moved from secular to religious journalism, often helping to publicise the work of missionary societies. In June 1931 he was appointed editor of the Friend. He retired in 1949 because of ill health and died in 1951.


Severe things are said by some about the conscientious objector. He is often called a slacker. I want to suggest to honourable members that it is

not quite fair to speak in these terms… Let me put the difficulty which the conscientious objector feels. May I just say what the Quakers feel.

We claim that no man can be called upon compulsorily to fight when the dictates of his conscience convince him that it is morally wrong to do so. Secondly, we claim that to require every man to be a soldier is to hand over every individual’s freedom to the military authorities, and to make the nation essentially a military power, dependent on material forces. We have taken that view from the early days. It is felt that war is essentially contrary to the spirit of Christianity…

A large body of conscientious objectors want to serve their country in a time of trial like this. Something like 500 young men have joined the Ambulance Unit in France and Belgium, doing what they can to carry the wounded, establish hospitals, and undertake reconstruction work. My honourable friend (Edmund Harvey) has been the leader in another part of France, where young men who hold these views have built about 300 houses and rehoused 2,000 people…

But there are others who do not feel that they can do that kind of work. There is a great principle at stake… They are willing to be persecuted if you are prepared to do it… What they feel is that if there is to be a re-establishment of right relations between nation and nation, there must be a new spirit, the gospel of love, the gospel of meekness…

I ask this House to be very careful that it does

nothing that is going to fan anything that might be a religious war in this country. I know it is not your intention to do so, but directly you begin to try and find out who is a conscientious objector and who is not, your difficulties begin. I do not think that the tribunals at present suggested are the best… To find out who is a conscientious objector needs a very broad sympathy.

Then supposing a good many of the conscientious objectors do not ask for exemption [for example, refuse to go before tribunals]. They will then be court martialled as deserters and have to suffer the penalties. They are not afraid of the penalties, they will suffer anything, but I am sure it would be bad for this country to have hundreds or thousands of these men suffering for conscience sake in this way. Some feel so strongly that the State has no right to compel them to fight or compel them to get into the military machine, or compel them to go before a tribunal, that I am afraid some would object to do it.

I am not supporting that, but I want to warn members to let the work that is done by conscientious objectors go on, on a voluntary basis. I beg of you to leave men still masters of their own souls, and to do nothing to destroy the fabric of England’s appeal to the conscience of the world.

Debate on the Second Reading, 12 January 1916

Arnold S Rowntree was a nephew of Joseph Rowntree, the chocolate manufacturer. He was Liberal MP for York, 1910-1918, and chair of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, 1925-1938. He died in 1951.

Parliament

‘Masters of their own souls’Arnold S Rowntree, Quaker and Liberal MP, supported the conscience clause which he and T Edmund Harvey had persuaded Herbert Asquith, the prime minister, to include in the Military Service Act. This is an edited version of his speech in the House of CommonsP

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I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death.I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.But I will not hold the bridlewhile he clinches the girth.And he may mount by himself: I will not give him a leg up.

Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,I will not tell him which way the fox ran.With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where the black boy hides in the swamp.I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;I am not on his pay-roll.

I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends nor of my enemies either.Though he promise me much, I will not map him the route to any man’s door.Am I a spy in the land of the living,that I should deliver men to Death?Brother, the password and the plans of our city are safe with me; never through me Shall you be overcome.

Poetry

ConscientiousObjector

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Lily Moss-Norbury, manager of the Quaker Bookshop in Friends House, London, who selected this poem, writes: ‘Edna was an American poet, who was a Pulitzer prize winner by the time she wrote this poem. While she was a dedicated pacifist during world war one, her allegiance to this slipped during world war two, when she wrote propaganda glorifying the fight against the Nazis. Ultimately, her reputation in literary circles was destroyed by this.

‘The poem itself was very much written while she identified as a pacifist. In it, we see the narrator rejecting Death’s advances, in his form as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, with death as his “business”. The narrator refuses to assist in the downfall of any other living being, be they friend or foe, through either fighting or becoming an informant, as he stands true to his conscientious objection beliefs.’

Edna St. Vincent Millay, ‘Conscientious Objector’ from Collected Poems. Copyright 1934, © 1962 by Edna St Vincent Millay and Norma Millay Ellis. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Holly Peppe, Literary Executor, The Millay Society. www.millay.org.


News

A PLANNED seven-storey hotel in central Exeter, if built, will ‘totally dominate the Meeting House and… invade the privacy of those wishing to use the building and the garden’, say local Friends.

Trustees of Devon Area Meeting have written to Exeter City Council objecting to the plans. An office block was originally intended for the site, but the developers have since opted to build a hotel instead. According to the planning application, this would be taller than the planned office block and would cover a larger space. Its windows would face the Meeting house and garden. In their objection letter, the trustees added

that the hotel’s proposed roof garden would allow occupants to ‘look down into the gardens and through the windows of adjacent houses in Pavilion Place’.

Michael Baker, clerk to the trustees, added: ‘The change of use from office to hotel accommodation is likely to lead to greater noise levels, particularly in the evenings and at weekends when the Meeting house is most heavily used.’

The Meeting house is on Wynards Lane, immediately south of the proposed development. Exeter City Council hopes to have a decision on the planning application by 14 March.

New Quaker charity hopes to ‘fill gap’QUAKER Action on Domestic Violence (QADV) launched on 19 February, following a year of preparation.

Director Kate Mellor told the Friend that the new charity came about as a direct result of the work of Quaker Homeless Action (QHA), of which she is also director.

She said: ‘When I wanted to do a domestic violence project that wasn’t appropriate for QHA there was nowhere to go. There were no Quaker charities that deal with domestic violence issues.’

QADV’s first project deals with the issue of ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF). The charity will work with women who are brought to the UK on

legitimate spousal visas but left destitute as a result of domestic violence.

‘We hope to fill the gap between them becoming homeless and being put into a women’s refuge,’ Kate explained. This gap can last for several weeks.

QADV’s second launch initiative is an NRPF education project. This will highlight British cultural norms and laws around women, marriage, violence and sexual violence to both parties in a spousal visa application.

The charity’s six trustees include two Friends (a doctor and a social worker) and Savvas Panas, chief executive of Islington-based homelessness charity The Pilion Trust.

BRITAIN YEARLY Meeting (BYM) has issued a response to the government’s plans to ban local councils from making ethical choices in their pension investments and procurements.

According to BYM, the proposals are undemocratic. They are expected to prevent councils from passing

policies to divest from or refuse contracts with arms companies, Israeli companies or companies connected to illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine.

BYM’s submission to the government referred to the proposals as ‘an unprecedented intervention in the right, as well

as duty, of local councils to take decisions that reflect the views and opinions of local communities.’

Paul Parker, recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting, added: ‘Organisations should be free to spend and invest money in an ethical way that reflects the views of their members.’

Quakers oppose changes to investment and procurement rules

Hotel plans threaten peace in Exeter

MEMBERS OF Bury St Edmunds Meeting held a silent vigil to witness against the renewal of the Trident submarine programme on Sunday 21 February.

Friends stood in silence for an hour in the town centre and were joined by friends from Amnesty International and a local peace group.

Friends take to the streets

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the Friend, 26 February 2016 25

[email protected] by Tara Craig

QSA welcomes Earlham students FOUR STUDENTS from Earlham College, Indiana, an American university founded by Quakers, are visiting Quaker Social Action (QSA).

Thea White, Kyra Williams, Hao Nguyen and Brittani Reno will be with QSA until April, working on two major research projects. Thea and Kyra are researching food poverty while Hao and Brittani are looking into QSA’s history as the charity looks forward to its 150th anniversary in 2017.

Hao and Brittani will be contacting people who have been involved in QSA over the years. They said: ‘QSA’s annual reports are a treasure trove of insight into the changing face of poverty and how Quaker communities have taken action. We can’t wait to speak with Friends who can bring some of these documents to life with their memories.’

Quakers with QSA stories or history are asked to get in touch with the charity.

QSA director Judith Moran told the Friend:‘So far, Friends have written some wonderful letters remembering our charity’s work, including memories from world war two and the beginnings of our oldest running project, Homestore, in 1989. These stories spur us on to deliver our mission and reach even more people in the future.’

TWO HUNDRED people gathered at Friends House on 19 February for an anti-Trident rally, in preparation for a national demonstration in London on 27 February.

BYM recording clerk Paul Parker welcomed the visitors, assuring them that Friends would be out in ‘force’ for Saturday’s demonstration. It is expected to be the largest in a generation.

Veteran peace campaigner Bruce Kent was among the speakers.

Student Ellie Kinney represented the youth perspective and called on the government to prioritise the real needs of people instead of wasting billions of pounds on a useless relic

a war – the cold war – which had ended before she was born.

Lindsey German from Stop the War Coalition, journalist Richard Norton Taylor and writer and filmmaker Tariq Ali also spoke.

Anti-war artist Peter Kennard announced the winners of the Cam-paign for Nuclear Disarmament poster competition. A number of the entries were on display in the Large Meeting House during the rally.

Anti-Trident rally draws crowds to Friends House

Friends further African interestTWENTY FIVE members of Quaker African Interest Group (QAG) met at the Priory Rooms in Birmingham on 20 February. The event was for both ‘old Africa hands’ and newcomers to the network, organising group member Lee Taylor said. It was facilitated by Ann Floyd.

There was a great deal of sharing. Topics included the recent Friends World Committee for Consultation World Plenary, Quaker Peace & Social Witness work, the forthcoming Swarthmore Lecture and the first year’s work of the reconstituted World Relations Committee.

Participants heard first-hand accounts of the work of

the Africa Peace Network, Friends of Monze (Zambia) and the Africa Great Lakes Peace Initiative. They also heard about the situation for African refugees in Calais and Dunkirk and listened to Abdul Kamara describe his experience as a refugee and how he came to Quakers.

Lee said that two passages from Quaker faith & practice resonated with participants. The first of these (25.13) was by William Penn, on the wretchedness of ‘wrong sharing’. The second (23.10) was by Gordon Matthews, on the need for a deeper spirituality and a more outspoken social witness.

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the Friend, 26 February 201626

How the right to ConscientiousObjection was won and the debates itsparked - as it happened in The Friend!Read every twist and turn in the pages of the Friend and discoverthe response of Friends as events unfolded week-by-week.The Friend 1914-18 Digital Archive offers a fascinating treasuretrove of Quaker and social history.

Free sample copyFor a free sample copy of our 7 August 1914 issue, all you need do is goto www.thefriend.org/archive and select ‘free sample’.

The 1914-18 Digital Archive is available to current individual subscribersof the Friend at the reduced rate of just £12 a year. Simply telephonePenny Dunn on 020 7663 1178 to confirm the sum due to cover theremaining balance of your current subscription period.

For new subscribers to the Friend, just go to our website atwww.thefriend.org/subscribe and select your preferred combination ofpaper and/or online versions of our publications, adding the 1914-18Digital Archive for just £12 a year. Or use the leaflet in this issue.

Subscriptions to the 1914-18 Digital Archive only are available toindividuals at £10 a month or £50 a year. Institutional subscriptionsare available at £100 a year for Quaker schools and colleges or £200a year for other institutions.

objection overruledBy David Boulton

The first edition of this classic account of First World War conscientious objectorswas published in 1967, commissioned by Bertrand Russell and Fenner Brockway,veteran leaders of the No-Conscription Fellowship. Now, half a century later,Objection Overruled has been reissued for the centennial, enlarged and updatedwith significant new material, making it the most comprehensive account available.

‘Clear, comprehensive and shocking, this is destined to become the classicaccount of the men who fought for the right to say no to war.’ The Observer

Published in association with Friends Historical Society; proceeds to Quaker peace work. £12 + £4.20 p&p.

Conscientious Objection by Jo VellacottBertrand Russell and the Pacifists of the First World War.“Jo Vellacott’s excellent book is a model of careful scholarship,clear and lively writing, and the choice of a subject that mattersdeeply...” £14.99 + £4.20 p&p

Comrades in Conscience by Cyril PearceA groundbreaking study of opposition to the Great War in onelocality - Huddersfield, where a unique consensus of Non-conformist Liberals and a vigorous labour movement earnedit a reputation as a ‘hotbed of pacifism.’ £15 + £4.20 p&p

Quaker Centre Bookshop, 173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJEmail: [email protected] or call 020 7663 1030

26 Feb 23/2/16 14:55 Page 4


The Men Who Said No tells the story of resistance to the 1914-1918 war,and of the men and women who put their lives on hold to stop war andthen refused to participate in it. It aims to permanently record somethingof the experience of as many individual COs as possible, irrespective oftheir affiliations or politics, and place conscientious objection into awider context of the anti-war movement at the time for public andeducational use. If you would like to help in any way or have anydocumentary material to be included, we would love to hear from you:

www.menwhosaidno.org

ECHOCHAMBERQuaker Arts Network seeksportrait project participantswith links to WWIConscientious Objectors foran exhibition at The Light.

www.quakerarts.net/events [email protected] details.

26 Feb 23/2/16 14:55 Page 5

Deaths


Friends&Meetings

Diary

Memorial meetings

Changes of clerk

QUAKER MEETING IN MALTAFirst Sunday of each month, 11amin a small library adjacent to theAnglican church (Holy Trinity) inSliema. Access from Rudolfo Street,bus no 12. Details:[email protected] orwww.maltafriends.org

THE KINDLERS IN THE NORTHAll-day workshop Saturday 27 Feb-ruary, Gifts and Service with ValBone and James McCarthy. What isour calling? Friends Meeting House6 Mount Street, Manchester M2 5NS.10am - 4.30pm. No booking£10 at door, bring picnic lunch.

A COSMIC HOLY WEEK24-27 March at Emmaus Centre,West Wickham, Kent. Join Mary JoRadcliffe in a creative group, explor-ing the meaning of the EasterGospel Story. Email: [email protected] or tel. 020 7223 2917.

SORT THAT DIFFICULTCONVERSATION: How to copewhen difficult conversation threatensyour sense of identity. Practice/feedback in a safe environment.7-11 March, Glenthorne - greatlocation, food and company. £395.Booking/Enquiries tel: 01684 [email protected]

QUAKER TAPESTRY IN NEW-CASTLE UPON TYNE 7-21 Mayat the Literary & PhilosophicalSociety Library (the 'Lit & Phil').Easy access by train. Have a citybreak and/or visit the castles andcoast. Come to Meeting, too!

A GRIEF LIKE NO OTHERSaturday 5 March, 1.30–4.30pm.Surviving the sudden or violentdeath of someone you love. WithKathleen O’Hara. This workshop isfor those who are bereaved andthose who care for them.The Meditatio Centre, EC1R [email protected] 020 7278 2070

UNKNOWING Friday 11 March, aday with Jennifer Kavanagh. JordansQuaker Centre, HP9 2SN. £35 orwhat you can afford. 10am-4pm. Tobook: [email protected] phone 01494 876594.

John Stevenson JOHNSTON (Ian)14 February in the Royal Infirmary,Edinburgh. Husband of the late Nora,father of Ian and Rona, grandfatherof Charlotte and Sandy. Member ofSt Andrews Meeting, formerlyGlasgow. Aged 81. Memorial tba.

Liz OLIVE 14 February, peacefullyin hospital in Cornwall after a veryshort illness. Partner of FelicityGibbins. Member of Come to GoodMeeting. Aged 69. Funeral Monday29 February in Truro. Details:[email protected]

Sheila HILL 9 February, peacefullyin her sleep. Member of WalsallMeeting. Aged 87.

Vernon BAKER Winchester Meetingwill hold a Memorial Meeting tocelebrate Vernon's life at 2.30pmSaturday 16 April in St LawrenceParish Room, Colebrook Street,Winchester (next door to theMeeting House). Tea after. Enquiries:[email protected]

HEBDEN BRIDGE LOCALMEETING Correspondence clerkfrom 1 January: Rosemary Daley,tel: 01422 843747. Email:[email protected]

WESTMORLAND REGIONALMEETING at Kendal MeetingHouse, Saturday 19 March,10.30am–3.30pm. Phil Lucas willtalk and lead discussions onConscientious Objection to com-memorate the Military Service Actof 1916. Enquiries 01539 720537.

QUAKER SOCIALIST SOCIETYWITH CLIVE LEWIS MP (ShadowEnergy Minister). Saturday 12March at Norwich FMH, UpperGoat Lane Norwich NR2 1EW.Meeting 14.00 - 16.00. AGM at12 noon, all are welcome to attend.

Meeting for worship

For how to place a notice on thispage, please see the informationbox on page 31.

A FEW PLACES REMAININGCharney Manor weekend11-13 March. Visit Oxford, optionalquiz/musical evening. Organized byStone Quakers. £180pp full board(£150 if sufficient takers). Under 14sfree. Contact James Went 01785814129 by 7 March.

26 Feb 23/2/16 14:55 Page 6


Quaker Peace & Social Witness

Objections to war:a Quaker approachSPEAKERS AVAILABLE FOR MEETINGS TO BOOKTo mark 100 years since conscientious objection to militaryservice was enshrined in British law in early 2016, QPSWnow has a group of speakers for meetings to book.

Each speaker will be able to offer a 1.5-hour learning sessionon ‘Objections to war: a Quaker approach.’

This will be a learning session exploring:

• the context and realities of conscription in World War 1• the pressures and dilemmas facing those who lay claim

to a conscientious objection to all warfare.

The session will draw on visual and written archive materialand present-day reports. It will include a presentation andreflective activity on Quaker objections to war,past and present.

To request a speaker, please contactHelen Bradford: [email protected] telephone 020 7663 1071.

Æ At EaseBunhill Fields Meeting House, London

[email protected]

Tel. 020 7490 5223 (Sundays 5-7pm)

Sympathetic, reliableVOLUNTEERS NEEDEDAT EASE provides a free, confidential,

independent service to membersof the armed forces including

conscientious objectors.

We are currently appealing formore volunteers for our London

centre on Sunday evenings.New volunteers work alongside anexperienced AT EASE counsellor.

We are also seeking volunteers inother areas to give occasional helpto people who need more support

than can be given by phone or email.

AT EASE speakers can visit groupswho would like to know more.

For more information pleasecontact us using the details above.

Plain QuakersTheatre

FOR CONSCIENCE SAKEA new play commemorating theopposition of Quakers and othersto the introduction of conscriptionin 1916, against the backdrop ofincreasing militarisation today.It will be performed at theseQuaker Meeting Houses:

EalingWansteadStourbridgeBournvilleBradfordSettleHuddersfieldManchester And also at Bolton Socialist Club

Fri 18 Mar 8.00

For more information email:[email protected] see: www.facebook.com/

plainquakerstheatre/

Sat 27 FebSun 28 FebFri 4 MarSat 5 MarSun 13 MarWed 16 MarSun 20 MarSun 15 May

4.0012.457.307.302.007.302.00tbc

War and PeaceA matter of conscience then and now

100 years after the introduction of conscription,Northern Friends Peace Board is still active and committed tosupporting Friends and others in taking action for peace.

We believe that we always have a choice to work for war or to work forpeace; to add to the distrust and hostility in the world or try patientlyto undo and lessen it. The responsibility lies with each one of us.

NFPB.org.uk [email protected] 01204 382330 Charity SC024632

Friends Historical Society promotes the study of Quaker history,which illuminates the religious beliefs of Friends. In both its publicactivities and its Journal the inspiring history of Quaker peace wit-ness, its challenges and achievements, are being explored. FHSis pleased to support the re-printing of David Boulton's pioneeringbook Objection Overruled.

Membership of FHS is open to all at an individual subscriptionof £12 a year. For details please contact: Gil Skidmore,46 Princes Dr, Skipton, BD23 1HL. [email protected]

Friends Historical Society

26 Feb 23/2/16 14:55 Page 7


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Conscientious Objectionin The Friend 1914-1918

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Milton Keynes MeetingRESIDENT WARDENWe seek a resident warden for our lively Meeting who shares our Quakervalues. Responsibilities include providing a welcoming presence at our busyMeeting House, managing lettings & administering our computerised lettingssystem, keeping the building clean and tidy. Rent-free small 3-bedroomedbungalow attached to the Meeting House provided, and up to 18 hours paidwork per week.

Closing date: 18.03.16. Interviews: 16.04.16.

For further details please email Margaret Cook: [email protected] orwrite: c/o Quaker Centre, 1 Oakley Gardens, Downhead Park, MK15 9BH

Communications and ServicesEvents & Committees AdministratorSalary: £25,724. Contract: Full Time – Permanent. Hours: 35 Per WeekLocation: Friends House, Euston, London NW1

We are looking for an experienced and capable administrator to support the Events & CommitteeServices Team to provide high quality support for a range of Quaker committees and events.

The role will include preparation and distribution of committee papers and event materials. Someattendance at events for onsite support will be required including at weekends. The role alsoprovides general administrative support to deliver team objectives.

The successful candidate will maintain high quality office systems, suggesting improvementswhen possible. They will need to be flexible, able to prioritise and manage diverse tasks andhave good people, communication, IT and database skills. They will need a high level ofattention to detail and the ability to work quickly, creatively and accurately under pressure.

Closing date: Wednesday 2 March 2016 (9am). Interviews: Friday 11 March 2016.

For information about Britain Yearly Meeting, visit www.quaker.org.uk/our-organisationand for information on how to apply please visit www.quaker.org.uk

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A unique collection; an innovativeeducation programme; a resource for peace.

Visit us: www.peacemuseum.org.ukand at 10 Piece Hall Yard, Bradford BD1 1PJ

(Thursdays 10–4; for other times see website)

Tel: 01274 780241‘Remembrance is not Enough’ textile banner by Thalia Campbell, 1981.

Digital image © The Peace Museum

The Peace Museum is an Accredited Museum.Registered Charity No. 1061102. Registered Company No. 32977915. Donations welcome.

We are the national museum for peace

'The Conchie' by Arthur W Gay, 1931. A bible-reading conscientious objector under military escort.Used by kind permission of Penelope Gay.

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Documents

26 February 2016 £1.90 the Friend · 2 the Friend, 26 February 2016 the Friend 173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ Tel: 020 7663 1010 Fax: 020 7663 1182 Editor: Ian Kirk-Smith [email protected]