Conscientious objector who paid the ultimate price for his beliefs
Today is Conscientious Objectors’ Day and Dr Aled Eirug takes a closer look at the life of one Welshman who died because of the mistreatment he received
ASMALL minority of men resisted all attempts to be coerced into supporting the First World War effort and became conscientious objectors.
One of their number, Walter Leslie Roberts – a young architect brought up at Hawarden in Flintshire and living near Stockport, Lancashire – became the first conscientious objector to die as a result of his treatment in captivity by the prison authorities.
Roberts’ family came from Flintshire, but he appeared before his local tribunal in Stockport and became the first CO to die during the war as a result of his treatment.
In September 1916, he was one of a party of 250 COs released from prison to work under the Home Office at a camp near Aberdeen.
The conditions of the camp, situated on a windswept hillside, were grim and the men lived in tents that had been condemned as unfit for soldiers and which leaked in the rain.
They worked for 10 hours a day smashing granite for road building in the nearby quarry, and on September 6, 1916, he wrote to his mother stating: “As I anticipated, it has only been a matter of time for the damp conditions to get the better of me.
“Bartie Wild is now writing to my dictation because I am now too weak to handle a pen myself.
“I don’t want you to worry yourself because the doctor says I have only got a severe chill so there is no reason why I should not be strong in a day or two.”
During the night, he fell out of his bed and lay on the wet ground for two hours, and on the following day he died, aged just 20.
Following his death the other inmates at the camp complained about the conditions, and following a visit by a delegation of MPs the camp was closed and conditions in other camps were improved.
Roberts was buried in Hawarden churchyard, and the inscription on his grave reads: “The young hands have carried His standard/ Right on to the end of the day/ And we know that the nations will follow/ Where thou hast trod the way.
At the end of the war, the Christian pacifist E.K. Jones idealised the experiences of the conscientious objectors as a “golden chapter” in his recollection of three years of persecution: “The prayer meeting in that locked cell: the spiritual talk (or chat), the verses of scripture written upon that wall of iron: the sorrow over that fine soldier that had been sacrificed in vain, the gentle conduct of our men at the court martial, the courage shown in the face of collapsed health and when reason was failing, and the cheerful readiness to die for the faith.
“It was delightful to witness the tenderness of many ordinary soldiers and of officers and doctors towards the prisoners.
“It is true that we were brought face to face with incredible cases of malice and utterly uncalled for cruelty.
“May God forgive these ignorant and hard-hearted men.”
His view of the experience of the COs as a hard and shameful episode was reflected in the Government’s legislation in 1939 that gave more appropriate attention to them.
When the Government prepared its legislation for conscription at the beginning of the Second World War, the claim for exemption on conscientious grounds was included, but the tribunals in the Second World War were appointed semi-professional bodies and dealt exclusively with applications from COs.
The legislation also provided for more categories of exemption on grounds of conscientious objection, as it was regarded, in the words of the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, as a “useless and exasperating waste of time and effort” to persuade absolutists to behave in a manner that was contrary to their principles, while they had no objection to doing work that was nonmilitary in nature.
The spectre of repeated prison sentences imposed on the absolutists was prevented by the Government’s acceptance of civilian legal machinery to discharge from the army a soldier who had committed an offence for conscientious reasons.
These provisions were placed in the Military Training Act 1940, and as the historian John Rae states in his book Conscience and Politics, they “enabled those affected by the Act to exercise freedom of conscience to a degree unequalled in any other country”.
Many of the COs of 1916-1919 went on to undertake illustrious roles as MPs and prominent trade unionists and gave valuable service to society, but many also experienced deep unpopularity and criticism within their own communities.
As T.W. Jones, a CO who later became a Labour MP, attested, while their stance led to the untimely death of more than 70 COs, the scale of the losses of men in the Great War made even this number pale into comparative insignificance.
■ Dr Eirug’s book Opposition to the Great War in Wales will be published by University of Wales Press later this year.