Online exhibition highlights matters of conscience
New exhibition by Friends House Library
by Tara Craig
8th April 2016
Friends House Library’s new online exhibition gives an overview of the introduction and impact of the Military Service Act, which came into force in March 1916.
‘Matters of conscience: Quakers and conscription’ focuses on the work of three Quaker parliamentarians who campaigned for the Act to include an exemption for men who had a religious or moral objection to violence and military service.
Arnold Stephenson Rowntree, T Edmund Harvey and John Emmott Barlow also pushed for the exemption to be on an individual basis. Former exemptions from military service had been granted to groups, including the Quakers themselves.
