Two conscientious objectors are jailed

ILP members opposed armed forces call

Two men well known in Stirling for being conscientious objectors were jailed following court martial, the Observer of 100 years ago reported.

However, it was later claimed that one of them, John Ramsay, may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Mr Ramsay, a painter, of 29 Lower Craigs, and Mr James Logan, printer, Abbey Road, both Stirling, were members of the town’s branch of the Independent Labour Party. Mr Logan was well known at the time as left winger of Stirling’s King’s Park Football Club.

After unsuccessfully opposing being conscripted because they objected to war on grounds of conscience, they were apprehended by police and handed over to the military authorities.

Mr Ramsay was ordered to carry out work of national importance under military supervision but a month earlier arrived in Stirling having allegedly absented himself without permission.

Mr Logan had failed to report for service and both he and Mr Ramsay were apprehended by police and handed over to an escort from Stirling Castle where the two appeared before a court martial.

For apparently absenting himself without leave, Mr Ramsay was sentenced to nine months in the military prison at Perth.

Mr Logan was sentenced to 168 days’ hard labour, to be served at Wormwood Scrubs Prison, London, for failing to put on Army boots at the command of a superior officer .

That, however, was not the end of the story. In the following week’s issue, the Observer said Mr Ramsay was in fact sentenced, not for absenting himself without leave, but failing to report to Stirling Castle when ordered by the military authorities to do so.

But whether he was obliged to obey the summons was open to doubt.

The Observer said that when Mr Ramsay returned to Stirling from the conscientious objectors’ camp he had permission to go back to his previous employment.

Few believed him and so he wrote to the Home Office seeking clarification in writing of his position. In a letter from Whitehall, printed in the Observer, Mr Ramsay was told that while he was at liberty to go back to his old job he had to be ready to return when called upon to continue the work of national importance he had been ordered to carry out.

The Observer said: “With this letter in his possession, it is not clear why the military authorities called him to Stirling Castle and court martialed and sentenced him. The reading of the letter from the Home Office seems to imply that he was outwith the jurisdiction of the military and within that of the Committee of Employment of Conscientious Objectors but he did not present the letter at the castle and evidently made no mention of the fact he had it at home.”