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MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT |
HARRY BROWN 1897 -  

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Harry Brown was one of the youngest Conscientious Objectors to go before the Carshalton Tribunal during the First World War. Born in 1897, he was only 19 when conscription was passed into law under the Military Service Act, and he would have been quickly called up into the Army. Instead of agreeing to be forced into uniform, Harry made the difficult and potentially dangerous decision to apply to his local Tribunal for exemption as a Conscientious Objector. Younger COs often found Tribunals very difficult, either through lack of experience in public speaking or through Tribunals insisting that an 18 or 19 year old was not yet old enough to have a conscience - though clearly young enough to fight, kill and die. Harry's Tribunal application was unsuccessful and he did not secure an exemption that he could accept. Though expected to report to the Army regardless, Harry refused to acquiesce to the Tribunal's decision to send him to the military and did not report, leading to his arrest as an absentee in June 1916, after which he was handed over under guard to the East Surrey Regiment and sent to the Dover depot. There, Harry's resistance to militarism began in earnest as he refused to follow any military order, quickly earning him a court martial and the first of several prison sentences. Harry's objection to war was absolute, not just refusing to take an active role as a fighting soldier, but refusing any compromise at all. He would no more support the war with his labour in a non-combatant unit than as a soldier actively fighting and killing on the front. This attitude saw him go through two separate short prison sentences, until he secured a transfer to the Home Office Scheme work camps in late 1916. Once on the Home Office Scheme, he would be shuffled between several different centres, including the notoriously poor Dyce camp, before ending the war in Wakefield.

 

 

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CO DATA

Born: 1897
Died:
Address: 1 St Michael’s Road, Wallington, Croydon
Tribunal: xxx
Prison: Canterbury, Maidstone, Wormwood Scrubs
HO Scheme:Dyce, Llangadoc, Wakefield [1]
CO Work: xxx
Occupation: Clerk

Motivation:

ABSOLUTIST

 






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