Update The total number of
records from the Pearce Register of Conscientious Objectors available via the Imperial
War Museum’s Lives of the First World War website now stands at 17,426. As was to be expected, keyword searches indicate that these
include more residents from the (present-day) London Borough of Ealing than
were included in the Partial Overview previously posted. The current figures are
(some approximately, as false positives and duplicates can’t always be detected
without looking at each transcription): Ealing 85; Acton
50; Southall 27; and Hanwell
15, excluding four COs from other places who were committed to Hanwell
Asylum.
The Hanwell
transcriptions have been looked at, and all five of the new names (i.e. not
previously noted on this blog) also match appellants with case files among
those of the Middlesex Appeal Tribunal (MAT)*.
They are:
·
Harry Leon Curtis, Salesman, 103, Elthorne Park Road;
·
Percival Norman Curtis,
Salesman and collector, 103,
Elthorne Park Road;
·
Arthur Hazell, Grocer's carman, 7, Westminster Road;
·
Alfred Percy Shawyer, Postman, 21, Deans Road;
·
Augustus Willis Smith, Butcher and slaughterman, 16, Half Acre
Road.
Four out of five of these appeals were
dismissed in what looks like a briskly routine fashion; they did not give the Appeal Tribunal case much trouble, so the files are comparatively
slim. Yet each relates to an individual story.
As might be guessed,
the first two were brothers, recorded in the 1911 Census as living at the same
address in Elthorne Park Road with their father (a Horse Collar Maker from
Hereford), mother and maternal grandparents. Harry Leon Curtis, 20, was a
Gas Fitter Salesman and Percival Norman Curtis, 15, a Coal Office Clerk. Five years
later, Harry was employed as a Salesman for Electrical Lighting & Heating accessories,
Percival as a ‘Salesman and collector in Coal trade’. Neither had ‘attested’ their
willingness to serve, and both, after their claims for exemption were refused
by the local tribunal, lodged appeals dated 2nd March 1916, in very
similar terms.
Grounds on which appeal made:
1. That judging from the remarks made by the
Local Tribunal [...] I failed to convince them that I have conscientious
objections.
2. That I am now in possession of
further evidence [...] that I have held these conscientious objections for upwards
of nine years, which evidence I wish to submit.
3. That I in fact have such conscientious
objections as entitles me to relief, and have held same since childhood.
Harry Leon Curtis
Percival added
4. That I am engaged in a trade of
national importance.
The Local Tribunal’s comments were the same for each of them:
Applicant failed to convince the
Tribunal of the genuineness of his claim that he had a conscientious objection.
The claim was based on ‘Religious Convictions’:
I have been baptised & confirmed in
the Church of England & am a regular Chorister & communicant since
youth at St. Thomas’ Boston Rd. Hanwell. [Harry]
I have been baptised, brought up &
confirmed into the Church of England & have been since childhood a regular communicant
& chorister in same. [Percival]
 |
| Side door of St. Thomas's church, Hanwell |
Given the vociferous support for the war and hostility to COs expressed
by so many spokesmen for the Church of England, probably including members of
the Tribunal, it is hardly surprising that these brief statements were not
enough to win their case. Any additional evidence adduced is not on file;
notices of dismissal of the appeals went out on 22nd March.
Transcriptions from the IWM show what happened next.
[Harry] War Service Essex Regiment; transfer to 1/9th
(County of London) Bn. (Queen Victoria's Rifles), killed in action 6.10.16. Thiepval Memorial.
So Harry was already dead when Percival’s ‘War Service’ (possibly
deferred due to his work in the coal trade) began. He survived and was duly awarded
the British War and Victory Medals: 28.2.17
Hounslow, Suffolk Regiment (Reserve Garrison); transfer to Labour Company
15.3.17 Northants. Regiment ; Home Service: 28.2.16 to 24.3.17; France: 25.3.17
to (?) ; Demob.14.12.19.
 |
| The older church building where the Curtis brothers were choristers. |
Grounds on which appeal made:
Inability to replace him.
50% of our staff have joined the forces.
Necessity of supplying food to the
people.
Goldway Bros.,
Southall,
25/2/16
The local (Southall-Norwood) tribunal explained its refusal:
After hearing both employer & him
on 23rd Feby 1916 Claim dismissed insufficient grounds.
His subsequent fate, after the appeal was likewise dismissed, is not
recorded.
Postman Alfred Percy Shawyer, from Paddington, was already a Boarder at 21 Deans Road in 1911, staying with an older fellow-postman,
Ernest Cohill (also born in Paddington), and
his wife. They would no doubt have been acquainted with another Hanwell CO and Post Office worker, George Brodie, who lived at 50 Deans Road. Shawyer
was employed at Hanwell Sorting Office. Aged 30 in 1916, he applied for
Absolute exemption from military service on 19th February on the
dual grounds of ‘Moral conviction’ and being medically unfit, citing ‘Testimony
of Dr. Hope, Postal Medical Officer’.
He was partially successful:
FOR LOCAL TRIBUNAL
Granted exemption from Combatant
Service and from other than Garrison duty at home & abroad.
[Signed] 6th March 1916
His
fitness for Garrison duty at home or abroad had been stated in a letter of 4th March from the Army
Recruiting Office in Bond Street, Ealing, by the doctor who examined him. A further
examination was ordered for the Appeal hearing, resulting in a more favourable
outcome, in the short term at least, insofar as:
... the Appeal Tribunal have decided
that the man be exempted from the provisions of the Military Service Act 1916.
The exemption is temporary for a period of six months from the 27th
March, 1916.
The ground on which exemption is granted
is that ill-health has been established.
A handwritten note at the front of the file confirms
Shawyer. Passed
for sedentary work only.
According to new regulations he will
be retained on the reserve but not called up at present.
The occupation of Augustus Willis Smith, ‘Butcher and
slaughterman', 16 Half Acre Road, hardly fits the profile of a typical Conscientious
Objector. Whether or not it struck them as incongruous, his claim got short
shrift from the local tribunal. He stated his grounds briefly without
elaboration, or reference to religion.
Conscientious
grounds. Moral convictions. Absolute
exemption.
I have an honest & sincere
objection to all forms of military service.
This was not regarded as enough.
Applicant entirely failed to convince
the Tribunal that he had a Conscientious
objection.
The statement in a
letter from applicant’s father (annexed) that he is engaged in a certified
occupation, was not considered by the Tribunal, applicant stating that he made
no claim on those grounds but confined his claim to the ground of a Conscientious objection.
Evidently it did not occur to them to draw the inference that his failure
even to attempt to play the certified-occupation card might be a sign of his
sincerity. Their decision was endorsed by the Military Representative:
1. The appellant described himself as a butcher and
slaughterman, but as exemption as been granted to three other slaughtermen in
Hanwell, and no claim was made on the ground of occupation, it is submitted
that the appeal should not be allowed on this ground.
2. The Members of the Local Tribunal have an
intimate knowledge of the appellant’s circumstances, and believe that the true
ground of the appeal that the appellant’s father, who is also a butcher, wishes
to retain him to help in his business [...]
3. The Local Tribunal were convinced that the appellant
had no conscientious objection whatever.
The father gave his occupation as Master Butcher in the 1911 census, when
the family were living at 14 Maunder Road, Hanwell. (They were settled in the
area – Augustus was born in Ealing, and his mother and sister in Hanwell.)
The letter
referred to by the Military Representative, unhelpful as it turned out to be,
is on file:
16
Halfacre Rd.
Hanwell, W
28/2/16
To the Chairman of the Tribunal,
Gentlemen,
I am appealing on behalf of my only son
who’s [sic] Convictions were known to me from the earliest days of the war. I
know that he absolutely refuses any military service whatever, not only that he
is in a reserved trade as slaughterman assisting me in my own work and as
slaughterman for the County Asylum Hanwell at present I am sorry to say that it
is impossible for me to do without him having strained the muscles of my back
besides what man can pull a bullock about weighing 8 or 9 hundred pounds by himself.
*
Yours faithfully
F.W. Smith * [Augustus
was aged 22 in 1916, his father 46]
The Appeal Tribunal decision was that the appeal be dismissed, but
Smith’s claim to be a Conscientious Objector was later vindicated as ‘genuine’
by the Central Tribunal, and like others he suffered for his beliefs,
eventually joining the inmates (including some from his home area) not only of
prisons but in the notorious Dyce camp and Dartmoor Work Centre. The
transcription outlines the recorded stages of the rest of his war:
Central Tribunal at Wandsworth MP (Military Prison) 9.8.16 -
CO class A, to Brace Committee; Central Tribunal Nos. W.196 M.13 Class: A -
Genuine
War Service 1 (R) Garr. Suffolk; CM (Court
Martial) Tilbury Fort 20.6.16 - 2yrs.HL (With hard labour) commuted to 3 months
HL Maidstone CP (Civil Prison)
Work Centre 24.6.16 to HOS (The Home Office
Scheme, administered by the Brace Committee); 22.8.16 to Dyce Camp, Aberdeen;
19.9.16 released from Dyce Camp on health grounds - Illness
May 1917 Dartmoor, Secretary of Dartmoor NCF (No-Conscription Fellowship)
branch.
Thus the man judged to have “no conscientious objection whatever” emerges
as one of the most steadfast and committed of COs.
Case Number: M11. Harry Leon Curtis of 103 Elthorne Park Road, Hanwell. Occupation: Salesman, Electric Lighting and Heating Accessories. Grounds of Appeal: F: On the ground of a conscientious objection to the undertaking of combatant service. Catalogue reference: MH 47/8/6
==============
* MAT file details (as listed by National Archives):Case Number: M11. Harry Leon Curtis of 103 Elthorne Park Road, Hanwell. Occupation: Salesman, Electric Lighting and Heating Accessories. Grounds of Appeal: F: On the ground of a conscientious objection to the undertaking of combatant service. Catalogue reference: MH 47/8/6
Case Number: M12. Percival Norman Curtis of 103 Elthorne Park Road,
Hanwell. Occupation: Salesman and Collector in Coal Trade. Grounds of Appeal:
F: On the ground of a conscientious objection to the undertaking of combatant
service. Catalogue reference: MH 47/8/7
Case Number: V69. Arthur Hazell of 7 Westminster Road, Hanwell.
Occupation: Wholesale Grocer's Carman. Grounds of Appeal: F: On the ground of a
conscientious objection to the undertaking of combatant service. Catalogue
reference: MH 47/72/51
Case Number: M190. Alfred Percy Shawyer of 21 Deans Road, Hanwell.
Occupation: Postman. Grounds of Appeal: E: On the ground of ill-health or
infirmity. F: On the ground of a conscientious objection to the undertaking of
combatant service. Catalogue reference: MH 47/9/13
Case Number: M13. Augustus Willis Smith of 16 Half Acre Road, Hanwell.
Occupation: Butcher and Slaughterman. Grounds of Appeal: F: On the ground of a
conscientious objection to the undertaking of combatant service. Catalogue
reference: MH 47/8/8
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