Oliver Bridle was an absolutist Conscientious Objector from Brighton. Before the war he worked as a mechanic for the Brighton Railway works and was active in his local branch of the National Union of Railwaymen. A non-sectarian Christian pacifist, No-Conscription Fellowship member and a Trade Unionist, he was one of many COs who had several reasons for resisting war and refusing to be conscripted into the army.

He initially applied for absolute exemption to the Brighton Tribunal in March 1916 as, at 25 and unmarried, he was in one of the very first groups of men to be called up as conscripts under the Military Service Act. At his Tribunal he refused all offers of non-combatant service but, as he was in an important job as a Railway mechanic, he was kept back from conscription until 1917.

By May 1917 however, Oliver had been called up, arrested as an absentee and sent to the army. The attempt to force him into the armed forces failed as he refused all orders and was court martialled, sentenced to 112 days hard labour in Wormwood Scrubs and sent to prison.

Though Oliver would leave prison at the end of his sentence in September 1917, he was soon back in Wormwood Scrubs after again refusing to take up arms to kill another person as a soldier. While at Wormwood Scrubs he went before the Central Tribunal which heard his case as a CO to decide whether or not to pass him for the Home Office Scheme. They did not find Oliver’s uncompromising beliefs convincing - but Oliver refused all offers and was resolutely determined to gain absolute exemption as a CO, or nothing at all.

His second prison sentence was to be his last, as Oliver was caught up in the waves of disease that spread in the wake of the war. While in Maidstone Prison, alongside several other severely ill COs, he died of pneumonia on the fourth of January 1919, well after the armistice was signed. Oliver, and all other COs in prison in 1919, could and should have been released, but a callous and vindictive government was determined to punish COs for their courageous stance against the war. This punishment, as much as any illness, was the cause of Oliver’s death.

He was well regarded in the Conscientious Objector community, as The Tribunal, the newspaper of the No-Conscription Fellowship, reflected in the obituary it published on the 9th of January:

Oliver Bridle, of Brighton, was a Coachbuilder employed by the L. B. S. C. Railway and a well known member of the Brighton N.U.R. He based his objection to military service on religious grounds and when before his Tribunal said “I love my fellow man and my conscience will not permit me to take up arms against him whatever the penalties may be. I cannot undertake any form of non-combatant service as I regard that as taking part in the war, nor can I accept my present work being made a condition of exemption. I am quite willing to suffer penalties to the very last”.

Those of us who were privileged to know something of him, retiring and unassuming as he was, knew that those words “to the very last” were uttered with all the sincerity of a quiet, deep nature. it did not come as a surprise that after twelve months imprisonment he felt obliged to decline the “concessions” with the quiet explanation that he could only accept one thing from the government, and that was unconditional release. And so he went on his way and forwent the talking exercises and warmer clothing that he could have claimed. But it was characteristic of him also that never once was he punished in prison, nor even reported, and had, as was stated at his inquest, a “clean sheet”, His health was greatly impaired by his nineteen months imprisonment. Fred Wilkinson, on his deathbed, was greatly concerned about him and kept saying that “Bridle has been through it”. Bridle was placed in the prison hospital, suffering from pneumonia and rapidly became worse. On Jan 3rd, his mother was wired for but he was unconscious most of the time after she arrived, and died on the 4th. He was buried at Brighton on the 9th and about 100 of his work mates of the N.U.R attended the funeral, as well as many N.C.F friends. As in the case of Wilkinson, his comrades in Maidstone sent a beautiful wreath.

Oliver, alongside many of the other Objectors that died as a result of negligence or abuse during the First World War, is named on the CO Plaque which stands as a memorial of their lives and dedication to peace. On the plaque “It is by the faith of the idealist that the ideal comes true” - a fitting testament to the men like Oliver that died in the pursuit of a great ideal, peace.