Back | Home
redline
MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT |
HARRY SYDNEY BRITTON 1895 -  

support

Harry Britton was 22 and working for the Civil Service when he was Conscripted under the Military Service Act in 1916. He was, at the time, heavily involved in the Assistant Clerks Association, a trade union which had voted to oppose conscription in January 1916. He was a member of the NCF and an Absolutist CO, one who refused to make any compromise with military authority whatsoever. These strong views must have made his Tribunal difficult and he was likely rejected in his application as a CO outright. The first known record of his experiences as a CO has his arrest as an absentee from the Army in November 1916, and he was taken to Lambeth Magistrates Court, fined and sent under escort to the Longbridge Barracks. One there, he would have been expected to follow orders, but he refused to do so, starting a long cycle of courts martial and prison sentences that would only end in April 1919. While in prison, he refused to take up the offer of the Home Office Scheme, denying even this small compromise with the military system. By January 1919 he had served three sentences and been in prison for over two full years. He was released under the "two year rule" which secured the discharge of long-serving COs. Interestingly, Harry was one of the few First World War Conscientious Objectors to also register as a Conscientious Objector in the Second World War. Though the vast majority of COs, Harry included, were too old to be Conscripted during the Second World War, he may have been expected to do compulsory work relating to the war - firewatching, ARP or munitions work. Long after his Tribunal in 1916, Harry again made the difficult and courageous choice to stand up to be counted as against all war.

 

 

Harry Britton

  Do you have more information or a photos of HARRY SYDNEY BRITTON? Let us know
 

redline
CO DATA

Born: 1895
Died:
Address: 5 Clarendon Avenue, Camberwell, London
Tribunal: Lambeth
Prison: Wormwood Scrubs, Wandsworth, Exeter
HO Scheme:Refused [1]
CO Work:
Occupation: Civil Servant
NCF:YES
Motivation: Trade Unionist
[2]
ABSOLUTIST

 






EditRegion7   EditRegion6
     
red line
address