Bert Brocklesby

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Bert BrocklesbyThis is a picture of Bert Brocklesby, South Yorkshire schoolteacher and Methodist preacher – one of 35 COs who were sent to France in 1916 and sentenced to death – simply for refusing to act against their consciences and take part in warfare.

They were reprieved at the last moment and given 10 years penal servitude instead. On International COs Day 2016, Bert’s granddaughter Jill Gibbon spoke movingly about Bert and the inspiration his story gives to her and all war-resisters.

Having been reading and writing about Bert and his fellow COs for the last four years, it was truly special for me meet his granddaughter. She gave me the picture of him, was displayed on the wall of Conway Hall for The Comrades in Conscience event on 25th May.

Walter Roberts

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Walter RobertsThis is a photo of Walter Roberts – the first conscientious objector to die during the First World War – just 20 years old. In a state of exhaustion, having already endured four months hard labour in prison, he died of pneumonia as he lay in a leaking tent in the pouring rain at Dyce work camp, near Aberdeen.

Fenner Brockway said: ‘To all of us, Walter Roberts’ life and death must be an inspiration.’ It helped close the camp at Dyce but achieved little else. Bert Brocklesby said of him – ‘A true martyr to the cause of peace and brotherhood.’

Bertrand Russell

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Bertrand Russell

Red Lion Square

Only through researching the COs’ struggle against conscription, did I come to learn the full extent of Bertrand Russell’s passionate commitment to the anti-war effort – pretty much giving up his own work for the duration of the war in order to help and support the young COs.  He became acting chairman of the No-Conscription Fellowship, and eventually went to prison himself for six months in 1918 – for an article he’d written.

 

Clifford Allen

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This image is of Clifford Allen, agnostic socialist, and quietly charismatic chairman of the No-Conscription Fellowship – before his imprisonment for refusing militaryClifford Allen service. He served three prison sentences including many weeks of solitary confinement on bread and water diets, at the end of which he was a frail and emaciated thirty year old, who looked twice his age, weighed less than eight stone and was suffering from the onset of tuberculosis.

Catherine Marshall

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Catherine Marshall was instrumental in the struggle for women’s suffrage and then devoted Catherine Marshallherself to the cause of the conscientious objectors in WW1.

When the young men in charge of the No-Conscription Fellowship were arrested for failing to report for military service, she and Bertrand Russell pretty much took over the running of the organisation. She was indefatigable, meticulous, and highly inventive at circumventing the probing and prying of government and the military.

Asquith at Baliol

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Asquith at Baliol

In Balliol College, Oxford, I came across this portrait of Herbert Henry Asquith – with strange lighting effects – a former scholar here, who later as Prime Minister, was the man who took us into the First World War.

Then, in 1916, he introduced the bill which ushered in military conscription, but who was also willing to wave through that bill’s controversial conscience clause, thereby giving some hope to the 16,500+ young men whose consciences would not permit them to take up arms.