Walter Beavis, born IN 1889, lived in Edmonton, Middlesex, and worked as a bank clerk.

With his strongly humanitarian elder brother, Stuart, he opposed the First World War, and joined the No-Conscription Fellowship. On the imposition of conscription in 1916 he applied to Edmonton Military Service Tribunal for exemption as a conscientious objector, but was refused any exemption at all. He seems to have regarded a possible appeal to Middlesex County Tribunal a waste of time, and ignored the inevitable call-up notice. He was thereupon arrested by the civil police in November 1916, brought before Edmonton Magistrates’ Court, fined and handed over to the military.

Taken to the depot of the Middlesex Regiment at Mill Hill, he refused orders such as to put on uniform, leading to court-martial on 16 November 1916 and sentence of 112 days imprisonment with hard labour. He was taken to Wormwood Scrubs Prison, London, where he appeared before the Central Tribunal on 20 December 1916, and was found to be a “genuine” CO, after all. He was offered, and he accepted, admission to the Home Office Scheme, and on 21 February 1917 was placed in Wakefield Work Centre. He probably spent time at other work centres, but details are not known. He would have been discharged in April 1919, when the Home Office Scheme was wound up and all work centres closed.

His brother Stuart was one of the 35 WW1 COs taken to France, formally sentenced to death, and then reprieved; he spent the rest of the war in prison.