Series - Conscription and conscience: Part three
In David Boulton’s final article on conscientious objectors in the first world war, he describes how they were ‘faithful onto death’
On the morning of 15 June 1916 Howard Marten, thirty-one, bank clerk from Pinner, Middlesex, and a member of Harrow Quaker Meeting, was escorted to the parade ground at Henriville camp, Boulogne. Court-martialled a few days earlier and convicted of refusing to accept military service, he was about to hear his sentence, witnessed by several hundred troops lined up for the ceremonial occasion. The chairman of the court martial delivered the verdict: to suffer death by firing squad. There was silence for several seconds before he continued: ‘confirmed by the commander-in-chief’. Another silence, then: ‘commuted to ten years penal servitude.’
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