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MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT |
EDWARD WILLIAM BURNS 1883 - 1918  

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Many of the Conscientious Objectors that lost their lives during the war did so from illness or neglect. In only a few rare cases was direct negligence and malice to blame. Sadly, William Edward Burns was one of these cases.

When conscription was introduced in 1916, William was working as a weaver in Failsworth and living with his wife Marion. His local Tribunal hearing in mid-1916 refused his application for exemption and, on the 1st of August after refusing to report to barracks, William was arrested and handed over to the Manchester Regiment. Posted to the Altcar Camp as a private soldier, William was quickly in trouble for refusing orders and by the 10th of August, he had faced a court martial and had been sentenced to 1 year of hard labour.

William’s first sentence was carried out in Walton prison, Liverpool, though after only a month he was sent to Wormwood Scrubs in London to go before the Central Tribunal. There, he was given the offer of the Home Office Scheme - better conditions in exchange for taking on work considered useful to the nation. Like many Conscientious Objectors given this offer, William decided to take it and was released from prison to Llanddeusant Work Camp in Wales. Work on the scheme was punishing and tough and many of the COs at Llanddeusant were dissatisfied with how they were treated. In October 1917, they went on strike over poor conditions and pointless work. William was rearrested as a result and would soon find himself in prison.

By November 1917, William was in Hull prison, desparately applying for a transfer to be nearer to his family in Manchester. Denied both this small comfort and stopped from going back to the Home Office Scheme, William went on hunger strike in protest in March 1918. COs on hunger strike faced force feeding, a brutal practice that prison authorities had used against many other political prisoners in the run up to the war. He was force fed twice daily, for three days on the 11th to 13th.

On the 13th of March, William died after being force fed. The tube which the Medical Orderly had used was too short, and he had been choked to death by food filling his lungs. While the MO clearly and flatly stated his responsibility for William’s death, two official inquests hushed it up as best they could, declaring that he had died of pneumonia as a result of force feeding and that no individual, practice or policy was to blame.

Despite the findings of the whitewashing inquest, the fault for the death of William Edward Burns lay squarely with the government that conscripted him to fight in a pointless war he could and would not accept. William’s life was another thrown away in the folly and slaughter of the First World War.

 

 

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CO DATA

Born: 1883
Died: 1918
Address: 688 Oldham Road, Failsworth, Lancashire
Tribunal:
Prison: Wormwood Scrubs, Hull
HO Scheme:Llanddeusant [1]
CO Work:
Occupation: Weaver
NCF:Manchester

Absolutist

 






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