Red Clydeside: A history of the labour movement in Glasgow 1910-1932

Events

The Plight of Conscientious Objectors

The Military Service Act of 1916 introduced compulsory military service to Britain, but also allowed for applications to be made for exemption from the call-up. This meant that men could appeal against army service on grounds of occupation, hardship, faith or moral belief. A system of Military Service Tribunals was set up to assess each application and either turn it down or grant the successful applicant an exemption certificate.

Men who applied on grounds of morality or faith were termed 'conscientious objectors'. They were generally unpopular with both the public and the authorities who saw them at best as unpatriotic shirkers and at worst as subversive revolutionaries. In practise many were Jehovah's Witnesses, Quakers or other Christian denominations, who simply saw the taking of life as wrong, while others objected to the war on political grounds.

The tribunals' main difficulty was seen as distinguishing between genuine cases, and those who had adopted such views (or took up exempt occupations) simply to avoid military service, i.e. evaders. The surviving documents show that the distinction was blurred, and that all applicants for exemption were distrusted. The Government introduced a policy of dismissing and cancelling the pension rights of Civil Servants who refused to fight on grounds of conscientious objectors. Although this practice was challenged in 1917 by an organisation called the Fawcett Association, representing Post Office workers, the Treasury decided it was a matter for individual Government Departments to deal with and refused to drop the policy.

Some 16,500 conscientious objectors obtained exemption certificates through the military service tribunals, the majority taking up non-combatant duties or working in labour camps run by the Home Office. Those who failed to convince the tribunals were sent to fight in France, where 41 were sentenced to death for refusing to accept military discipline. Those who returned from France joined a total of 1,298 conscientious objectors imprisoned for their views, of whom a further 70 died.