THE MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT | INDEX
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THE MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT | INDEX |
| ERNEST JAMES WILLIS 1893 - 1975 |
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| Ernest Willis was not a Conscientious Objector in the strictest sense of the word. He never went before a Tribunal, or argued his case to be exempted from combatant service under the Military Service Act. Instead, he volunteered for the army, but as a dedicated non-combatant, determined only to save lives and never to take them. Ernest joined the "Welsh Students Company" Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) unit, enlisting at Rhyl Town Hall on the 28th of January 1916. The Welsh Students were, despite the name, not entirely Welsh, many coming from preaching backgrounds around England and Wales. The RAMC provided them with a "non-combatant guarantee", ensuring they would not be asked to carry or use weapons. Men like Ernest could therefore hold to their own consciences while still working to alleviate the suffering and misery caused by war. After a month of training in Powys, Ernest and the rest of the Welsh Company were put into service with the RAMC on the home front, before being shipped to Salonika in September 1916. Ernest worked with the RAMC in Salonika until the end of the war, when, wracked with illness, he was transferred back for recovery in Britain. After several months he was finally discharged in July 1919. Men like Ernest who never went before a Tribunal are sometimes not regarded as Conscientious Objectors, but in following his conscience and taking up non-combatant service, Ernest held to the principles that all COs shared - that they would not, and could not, take life in warfare.
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