From the archive: Sufferings - The road to Wormwood Scrubs!
Janet Scott continues her series of selections from the pages of the Friend published during the first world war. The stories of Friends who were conscientious objectors continued to feature strongly in the autumn of 1916.
Stephen Hobhouse had been instrumental in setting up the Emergency Committee for the Relief of Alien Enemies and was its chairman until he resigned on becoming caught up in the military system. The Friend of 1 September 1916 reported his tribunal in August, when he declared:
As a disciple of Jesus Christ and also as an advocate of International Socialism, I must refuse to take any willing part in operations which have as their object or their accompaniment the wholesale slaughter of our fellow-creatures in war… I cannot willingly acquiesce in any change of occupation imposed on me by a body set up under a Military Service Act, the sole object of which is the better prosecution of the war… Germans, like Englishmen, have the Spirit of God within them; and, I believe, that, if we persevered, in spite of everything, in using Christ’s weapons of love and reasoning towards them, we should in the end meet with a response that would make all war unthinkable. I am making this application to the Tribunal, not so much in order to plead for any exemption, as in order to bear my testimony against a compulsion Act, which I regard not only as unChristian but also as a betrayal, in large measure, of the ideals of liberty for which Britain is considered to be fighting.
The Tribunal offered Stephen Hobhouse exemption conditional on his joining the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU), which he refused to do. He was arrested in October and posted to a regiment, where he refused to obey orders. The Friend, in the issue of 24 November, quoted from the report of his court-martial.
It was published in the Daily News and Times:
Stephen Hobhouse, son of the Right Hon. Henry Hobhouse… called Lord Courtney of Penwith, who spoke of his nephew’s career at Eton and Balliol. At Oxford, accused became deeply impressed with religious convictions, and joined the Quakers, and had since spent his life in social and religious work. During the first Balkan War, he went to Constantinople to help provide assistance to the refugees. Lord Courtney… stated that he could personally testify to the sincerity of accused’s convictions, which he believed to be unshakable.
Stephen Hobhouse was found guilty and by January 1917 was in Wormwood Scrubs.
Corder Catchpool, a lifelong Friend and an engineer, joined the FAU when it started and was in the first party that went out to France. In 1915 he became the adjutant, but in May 1916 he left the Unit. He felt, with the introduction of the Military Service Act in 1916, that he could serve the cause of peace better at home than at the front. The Friend, in the edition of 6 October, reported on his tribunal in September. He said in his defence:
Conscience does not primarily object and refuse, but commands. It commands loyalty to the voice of God in the heart… I am not chiefly concerned to secure exemption from military service, but to bear witness to the Truth as it is revealed to me: knowing that I do this whether I obtain exemption or not, whether I am free in the body or not, so long as I remain true to principle.
I have little desire for my own safety and comfort when hundreds and thousands of my fellowmen of all nations are laying down their lives… But I, too, am enlisted, not merely for three years or the duration of the war, under a Captain who also calls for adventure and sacrifice in His name; whose commands to me are unmistakable, not only to act towards enemies in a very different spirit, but also to proclaim His commands and to win recruits to His cause.
For the first time in my life I have become acutely conscious that the command of the State may be for me no longer compatible with the command of God, to whom loyalty is supreme.
Given exemption from combatant service only, he was arrested while at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in January 1917. His court-martial was reported in the Friend of 9 February 1917 and he also was sent to Wormwood Scrubs.
Meeting for Sufferings
If today we regard Meeting for Sufferings as the epitome of good discipline, it was not always so. Some of the matters discussed in 1916 may still be painfully familiar to some Meetings! The Friend carried interesting insights, such as in the issue of 11 August, when Sufferings met in August 1916. The clerk asked Friends:
to consider in what way the business of the Meeting could be more satisfactorily performed. He had noticed, in looking over the minutes, how very frequently matters had been postponed from month to month, owing to the lateness of the hour; and the meetings had lasted so long that routine business was transacted late in the afternoon by a handful of tired Friends. Would it be possible to begin earlier, or to have more frequent meetings, or would the Meeting be willing to put restraint on its discussions, and allow the Clerk to work to a time allotment? He hoped Friends would give thought to these questions, so as to come to some decision next month.
The Friend reported a suggestion that the day of Meeting, Friday, should be considered as this was a busy day for businessmen. The effect of following the days of committee meetings meant that Friends were exhausted before Meeting for Sufferings started. The letters, published in the Friend two weeks later on 25 August, had a contribution from S.W.M., who suggested:
(1) The time of the Meeting for Sufferings might well be changed to 10.30 when we remember the number of representatives ready and waiting in the yard at that hour.
(2) The business should be conducted with more promptitude, – long addresses and sentimental effusions being prohibited, [and] political subjects… absolutely abandoned.
(3) The use of our subscribed funds should be much more carefully watched than it has been in late years and far less spent on printing.
At the meeting in September, reported in the magazine on 8 September, considerable discussion took place. Among other contributions, the Friend reported:
Albert J. Crosfield thought there had lately been too much speech-making, and also hoped that the Clerk would check the habit of Friends speaking several times in the same discussion… Frederick Barritt, hoped that the length of speeches might be restricted and irrelevant subjects ruled out.
J. W. Graham thought… time was wasted when a large meeting spent much time in criticising proposals to which sub-committees had given several hours previously.
Henry T. Hodgkin would like an Agenda. Friends would have greater feeling of responsibility as to the use of the time of the Meeting if they knew what subjects were likely to come forward.
The Friend reported general agreement, in the same issue, about the length and number of speeches and the value of an agenda.
In the issue of 13 October, the Friend reported:
As arranged a month ago, agenda papers were placed on the seats in the Old Meeting-house in preparation for the meeting on the 6th inst. The advantages of the plan were not, perhaps, fully tested, as the list of subjects to claim the attention of Friends was short, and the Meeting actually closed by 1.15.
The agendas appeared in the November Meeting for Sufferings as did narrow crimson ‘rugs’ on the benches! These were a gift from an anonymous member of the Meeting. This generous donation was described as ‘a striking innovation… which added greatly to the comfort of Friends’.
The Meeting heard that the prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs were able to attend a half-hour Meeting for Worship on alternate weeks.
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