Oct 16th 2017
‘On the second week of my tour
The schedule then led me
To a Quaker In A Pear Tree…’
No, of course he wasn’t IN a pear tree – I just couldn’t resist staying as true as I could to the Christmas ditty…
A Quaker And A Pear Tree
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Tag Archives: Bert Brocklesbury
This Evil Thing: four and a half weeks to go… A Chapel in South Yorkshire
Sunday July 3rd
Richmond Castle
Ros Hutt, the director of THIS EVIL THING, and myself were hoping to get up to Richmond Castle in Yorkshire to visit the very cells where Bert Brocklesby and other conscientious objectors were imprisoned in 1916.
There is still graffiti on the walls of one cell, drawn by Bert himself with a piece of charcoal he smuggled in – that graffiti being a rather fine drawing of his fiancee Annie Wainwright; as well as an image of a man bearing the weight of a cross. (The graffiti is being restored and preserved by English Heritage.) Timetables wouldn’t permit our trip however.
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Bert Brocklesby
This 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.
Michael Mears 