The men of conscience who refused to fight

PERCY Rosewarne’s family was hugely patriotic. His own father had joined the British Army when he was still two years under age, so that he could go off to fight in the Boer War. And Percy himself was sent off to join the Green Howards as a “band boy’’ when he was 12 or 13 years old.

He remained in the army for five years, coming out of the reserve at the beginning of 1914 – just a few months before the First World War exploded upon a largely unsuspecting Europe.

There is nothing to suggest the young man disliked being in the army. In fact, when war broke out, he and two friends went along to try to enlist again. They wanted to join the same regiment: but when only Percy was accepted, his response was forthright: “If you aren’t taking all three of us, you’re not taking me.”

Percy found work on the railways in York: first as a cleaner in the sheds, and later as a fireman. And along the way, he suffered a complete change of heart, says York oral historian Van Wilson.

It may have been something to do with a book he had been given, while still a band boy, by the art critic and social thinker John Ruskin. Whatever the reason, by the time conscription was brought in, in 1916, Percy had become a conscientious objector.

Years later, Percy’s son Arthur, a well-known York Minster guide who passed away in 2009 at the age of 87, told his father’s story to the historian Dr Alf Peacock.

From what he said, it is clear that Percy’s refusal to fight had nothing to do with a failure of courage. It was a matter of principle.

For a start, the railways were a ‘reserved occupation’ – so Percy wouldn’t have had to go to fight. But he was by now a confirmed pacifist, Arthur said – and he refused to work the extra two hours required of railwaymen so younger men could be released for war duty.

For six months he effectively went on a work to rule, working only his original hours. Eventually, the military authorities lost patience with him. He was told he would have to register for military service and when he refused, he was arrested and taken to the military barracks in Fulford.

Percy, however, was made of stern stuff. “He’d been a person who believed in royalty and patriotism,” Arthur told Dr Peacock. “He turned and became fanatic on the opposite side of the fence.”

He was court-martialled for his repeated refusal to fight, and given a month’s detention. Then he was court-martialled again, and sent to Salisbury Plain for a further five months detention. There, he was made to march – still in his railway uniform, because he refused to wear military uniform.

“They put him on the parade ground in front of all the others and of course, he just walked at a normal pace with his hands in his pockets, which disrupted the Army discipline tremendously,” Arthur told Dr Peacock.

Percy was court-martialled again, and sent to Wandsworth jail for five months. His treatment t was harsh.

“He had to undress in his cell and put on uniform because they still tried to make you become a soldier even though you’re in the cell,” Arthur said. “They would physically strip you and leave you for days on end and the uniform would be there and you would shiver and of course, if you put it on well, they handed you back to the military authorities again.

“But my father refused . So six warders came in and they asked him three times and he refused three times and so they tied the whole of the uniform and the equipment with flex round his neck and then they ... and threw him up in the air and he hit the ceiling of the cell and crashed onto the floor.” He still had the bruises five months later, when he emerged from prison.

Even now his ordeal wasn’t over. He was court-martialled again – and given two years hard labour, even though the war had ended. It wasn’t only the military who had it in for Percy. His family turned against him.

Before his arrest, he’d been living in York with his aunt. But one day, when he returned from his work on the railways, he found that all his things had been put out on the street. “They wouldn’t let him in the house, so he had nowhere to go,” Arthur told Dr Peacock.

The treatment of this one conscientious objector sounds extraordinary by today’s standards: all the more so since, at the beginning of the war, the young men of York had hardly flocked to join up in a rush of patriotism.

Despite attempts in local newspapers to portray the York men who enlisted in the first weeks of the war as heroes, a report on military recruitment concluded that York was “one of the most difficult in England for obtaining recruits.”

In the first days and weeks of the war, there was an average enlistment in York of 34 men a day for ‘Lord Kitchener’s special army’, the report said. “But the city of York can take little credit for them, as more than 93 per cent of the enlistments emanate from outside the boundaries.”

By the time conscription was brought in in 1916, attitudes had changed. The ‘military service bill’ made clear people could ask to be exempted from military service on ‘conscientious grounds’ - and tribunals were set up to consider applications.

But life for conchies was not made easy. One of the stories related to Dr Peacock was that of Andrew Brittan, a master at Haxby Road Elementary School.

His story was told by John Kay, a Quaker and master at Bootham School, who was himself too young to fight in the First World War. Mr Brittan was engaged to a fellow teacher, Mr Kay told Dr Peacock.

“When he became a conscientious objector she threw him over and married a wealthy shopkeeper. A man I met... remembered him being driven through York on something like a corporation refuse cart. There were conscientious objectors that were submitted to the most humiliating and degrading treatment.”

Brittan was eventually sent to Richmond Castle, stripped naked in the square outside, beaten and humiliated. He was kept in prison until April 1919 and later emigrated to Tasmania.

York’s most famous supporter of ‘conchies’ was Arnold Rowntree, who when war broke out was the a Liberal MP for York. A Quaker, he championed the cause of conscientious objectors throughout the war - and suffered the consequences in 1918, when he lost his seat.

Van Wilson, who with the York Oral History Society is putting together a collection of Dr Peacock’s interviews with First World War veterans - and a few conscientious objectors - says for all the way they were treated at the time, many ‘conchies’ were men of courage.

“Many people at the time treated them with contempt, as though they were cowards,” she says.

“But if you think about it, it took real bravery to stand up for what you believed was right, to insist it was wrong to take another life, knowing that you would be condemned, shunned, persecuted or even imprisoned for it.”

York Oral History Society is currently transcribing 285 interviews, recorded in about 1980 by historian Dr Alf Peacock, with the aim of producing a book and exhibition, plus a commemorative event in July, to mark the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of of the First World War.

The recordings are mostly with veterans who fought on the front line, but there are also a number with conscientious objectors. The names of the veterans Dr Peacock interviewed whose stories are likely to be included in the book and exhibition are listed below.

The society is keen to hear from relatives of these men, both in order to give them a copy of the recording and also to get photographs to supplement the interviews.

To contact the society, email contact@yorkoralhistory.org.uk

More details, and photographs are wanted on the following veterans:

Arthur Abel (Easingwold), George Barker (Pocklington), Hawksworth (known as Oxy) Barker (Pocklington), Arthur Britton, Johnny Buckle (Cawood), Arthur Bull, Miss Hilda Carr (Wheldrake), Harold Carson, George Clark, Jim Cowling (Raskelf), Herbert Cussons, Thomas Flint (Pocklington), Horace Frost, Arthur Gladwin, Bill Hairsine (Wheldrake), Gaythorn Kettlewell, Archie and Sarah Kirk, Bill Kitching, Harry Locke, Edwin Lofthouse, Len Lovell, Ned Lovely, Paddy McLoughlin, Dick Mills, Harry Mills, Angus Peake, John Pratt, Hugh Price, Charles Richardson, (Pocklington), Tom Richardson, Stan Robson (Pocklington), Norman Rogers, Robert Rose, Arthur Rosewarne, Tom Scott, William Simms, Dick Smith, Len Steele, (Helperby), Fred Syson, Clarence Ward, Colonel Innes-Ware (one time York coroner), Jim Watters, John Yates, Herbert Young.