The year is 1917. A man crouches in the corner of his prison cell, scribbling a letter to his family. Snatched away from his home in Peckham, and sent to Wandsworth prison, Arthur Creech Jones writes of the “awful monotony” of jail life. But at least he wasn’t across the channel, fighting over the “blood-soaked soil of France” in “senseless suicidal slaughter”.
Arthur Creech Jones was one of roughly 20,000 British men who refused conscription in World War One. In the present borough of Southwark, approximately 250 individuals rejected the call to arms in 1916.
Refusing to fight in an era saturated with nationalist pride and imperial ambition was difficult. By 1916, the Western Front had ground to a stalemate. Meanwhile, the media churned out horrific stories about German soldiers dismembering babies, many of which proved to be sensationalist propaganda.
In January 1916, Asquith’s government passed the Military Service Act introducing conscription for single men aged between 18 and 41. The No-Conscription Fellowship immediately sprang into action and Southwark quickly became an important hub of activism.
This was in large part because of Alfred Salter, a revered Bermondsey politician and doctor who, along with his wife Ada, helped thousands living in poverty. Alfred sat on the group’s national committee alongside the anti-war philosopher Bertrand Russell.
The second pole of resistance appeared in East Dulwich, at a community hall between Hansler and Shawbury Road. Hansler Hall was the headquarters of the Dulwich Independent Labour Party, a group producing pamphlets arguing for anti-conscription and advising conscientious objectors.
Large demonstrations were held in Peckham Rye Park suggesting at least some support for those who refused the call. But, in the courts, objectors felt the full force of the state; usually forced to endure prison sentences or hard labour.
Research by local historian John Taylor has uncovered some of the individual stories of those who refused military service. There was Robert William Allen, a postman from Crail Row and Robert Jarvis, from Larcom Street, a clerk and baptist.
There were also brothers John and Albert Hawkes from Phelp Street, Walworth. They lost their respective jobs as a restaurant dispatcher and lithographic machine minder and were sent to prison before being transferred to labour camps under what was known as the Home Office scheme.
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Arguably most famous among Southwark objectors was Arthur Creech Jones. Though born in Bristol, the 27-year-old civil service clerk was living with relatives at 46 Keston Road near Goose Green when he was ordered to join the Western Front.
Jones had long been active in the DLP, serving as secretary between 1912 and 1916, and appears to have been a fulcrum of their activities. In September 1916 he was court-martialled after refusing to stand to attention at Hounslow barracks.
A clause in the Military Service Act did allow conscientious objectors to argue for exemption over religious or moral convictions. The vast majority were refused and forced into military service or non-combatant duties.
However, that wasn’t the case for absolutist objectors of which Jones was one. These individuals refused to undertake even non-combatant duties. At his court-martial, Creech Jones said: “I view war merely as a test of might, resulting from dynastic ambitions, commercial rivalries, financial intrigues and imperialistic jealousies.
“It is a stupid, costly and obsolete method of attempting to settle the differences of diplomatists, in which the common people always pay with their blood, vitality and wealth.”
The court sentenced him to six months’ hard labour, which he served in Wormwood Scrubs. In January 1917 he again refused to obey orders and was sentenced again and only released in April 1919.
During his time in prison, Jones would often pen letters to family members which have become important sources for historians researching anti-conscription sentiment during the Great War.
Writing home in April 1917, he said: “I am often haunted with the memory of dear Morris Rogers (oh! his gay, boyant chivalry and generous heart!) rotting away in the blood-soaked soil of France; I think of Aunt Sarah’s agony & heartbreak in losing a son like Joe, and of Mrs Mason wearing away in ceaseless anxiety over Tom, besides the distress & suffering that have come to others of our friends. Is not the world weary of this bloodshed & misery & weeping…?”
Jones lost his civil service job due to his imprisonment but his time in jail gave him ample time to read history, politics and economics. He would later rise to become MP for Shipley between 1930 and 1950, serving as Secretary of State for the Colonies in the late 1940s.
While there were resistors, it must be recognised that public sentiment was decidedly behind the troops. War shrines appeared across Southwark, with memorials unveiled in Walworth, Camberwell and elsewhere, often before the fighting had even stopped.
But although anti-conscription sentiment did not end the war, post-war politics was filled with conscientious objectors. Between 1919 and 1929, roughly 145 constituencies selected men and women from the anti-war movement as parliamentary candidates from the wartime anti-war movement. There were 68 in 1923 alone, of whom 34 were elected including fourteen former objectors.
