White Feather Diaries project launched

Online storytelling initiative launched on International Conscientious Objectors Day

Friends from all over Britain converged on Friends House on 15 May to celebrate the launch of a major Quaker project.  Quakers in Britain chose International Conscientious Objectors Day to introduce the four-year project to tell the suppressed stories of world war one: Cranks or heroes? Telling the untold stories of world war one.  The launch was held in the Small Meeting House at Friends House in the morning and was introduced by Paul Parker, recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting. He said that ‘conscientious objectors showed courage and not cowardice. Pacifism was then, and still is, a brave and difficult decision.’

The event marked the start of a hugely successful day when the witness and bravery of conscientious objectors (COs) in the first world war, who refused to kill as a matter of conscience, were remembered.

A significant and imaginative part of the Quaker contribution to the centenary of the first world war is an online storytelling initiative entitled The White Feather Diaries. It introduces five Quakers who ‘blog about their daily lives and dilemmas’.

The White Feather Diaries will go online on 4 August and run for periods over three years leading up to the anniversary of the Military Service Act of 1916, which brought in conscription.

The five COs who were selected for the project, and who can be followed on @wfdiaries, were announced: John Hubert (Bert) Brocklesby, a teacher from South Yorkshire; Laurence Cadbury, of the famous chocolate firm; Hilda Clark, a doctor from an affluent Quaker family in Somerset; Ted Hoare, who was a student at Oxford; and Howard Marten, a bank clerk, who was involved with the No-Conscription Fellowship.

Geoffrey Durham, the writer and broadcaster, gave an inspiring talk about The White Feather Diaries to those gathered in the Small Meeting House. He described the journals as ‘absorbing, exhilarating and painful’ and emphasised that many pacifists were not ‘passive’ but ‘active’ in following their consciences.

He talked about how, in 1914, admiral Charles Fitzgerald came up with the idea of creating an ‘Order of the White Feather’ for those who refused to fight. Geoffrey called it a ‘mean-spirited, short-sighted, bone-headed’ idea and went on to illustrate, by practical examples of the life and witness of COs during the first world war, why he felt this.

He quoted statistics on the enormous contribution made by COs during the war and also stressed that the same spirit, and courage, that drove them also drives pacifists to engage in peace work today.

Geoffrey Durham quoted twenty-seven-year old Bert Brockleby who wrote, in part of his White Feather Diary, ‘I was unable… to start hating millions of people I had never met’.

Geoffrey stated that ‘everyone in 1914 was in an impossible position, taking nightmarish decisions’.

He highlighted the dilemmas faced by politicians on whether to choose violence or reject it. ‘Conscientious objectors’, he reflected, ‘show us, then and now, that a peaceful response is possible.’ He urged those present to ‘read these tough, compassionate, diaries’ and to ‘work it out for yourself’.

Ruth Cadbury and Mike Smith, who had family connections with COs in the first world war, spoke about the value of the project.

Ruth Cadbury stressed that Quakers often took different positions and that these could change. Mike Smith, who had done postgraduate work on COs, talked of his fascination, recently, when he saw the original handwritten letter of application from one of his relatives to join the Friends Ambulance Unit.

An exhibition of photographs and rare historical artefacts from the archive of the Friends House Library, relating to the first world war, was on display during the day in the library. These included fragile diaries of imprisoned COs and bullets transformed into cutlery.

---

Comments

Please login to add a comment