Lawrence Deller was a religious Conscientious Objector living in Kensington, London, in 1916. Lawrence and wife, Ethel, were both dedicated pacifists in a community where their beliefs were viewed with suspicion, even hostility, long before Conscription came into law in 1916. When the Military Service Act was passed, Lawrence did not hesitate in lodging an application for exemption as a CO from his local Tribunal in Kensington.

His case was used in Parliament as an example of the abusive and arbitrary nature of the Tribunal system. Edmund Harvey, on the 25th of October 1916 gave a lengthy account of Lawrence’s Tribunal, stating that:

“The Kensington Tribunal was satisfied as to his claim as a conscientious objector and granted him exemption from combatant service only, which they considered adequate. He appealed in order to get fuller exemption, and the Appeal Tribunal dismissed his claim altogether. They had had no evidence to justify that decision, and they did not discuss or deal with his conscientious position at all.

The military representative said, "You know the Bible, Numbers 32, 6. What about ' Vengeance is mine'"? "Yes," said Mrs. Deller, "'Vengeance is mine saith the Lord,' not man's." Mrs. Deller then asked what her position would be if her husband remained faithful to his principles. The military representative replied, "If he fights you will get the separation allowance; if not, you will get nothing, so he has got to fight." Mr. Deller said, "Whatever you, or the tribunal say, nothing can alter God's law, 'Thou shalt not kill.'" "God's law be damned; go and fight," said the military representative.”

Harvey’s question came to nothing - one of many examples of the unfair attitude and persecution of the Tribunals and the Military Representative system brought up in Parliament that were ignored by the Government. Lawrence was thrown into the military system regardless of his Conscientious Objection and posted to the 6th London Rifles. There, he refused to obey military orders, faced a court martial and was sentenced to 6 months hard labour, to be served in Wormwood Scrubs.

At the Scrubs, Deller was brought before the Central Tribunal which re-heard his case as a Conscientious Objector. They judged him to be a “Class A man”, or a genuine CO - a judgement that would not lead to his release, but to the offer of a place on the Home Office scheme, effectively the extention of a compromise to Absolutist COs - better conditions and release from prison in exchange for abiding by a strict set of rules and confinement to a labour camp.
Conditions on the scheme were hard and the labour COs were asked to do was pointless and difficult, carried out in all weathers with inadequate and antiquated equipment. Lawrence was first sent to Dartmoor to the Princetown Camp, the largest Home Office Scheme centre for six months. In December, he was sent closer to home, to a work centre in Chelsea, where he worked for 11 months. By November 1918, Lawrence was one of many COs allowed to look for what was known as “Exceptional employment under the Home Office Scheme”, keeping to the same rules and regulations as the HoS, but employed outside of a work camp.

Unfortunately, this release was too little too late. The harsh conditions and half-starvation rations that Home Office Scheme men endured led to many becoming weak, malnourished and sick. With more than a year of the HoS behind him, Lawrence fell ill and quickly succumbed to the waves of influenza and pneumonia that followed in the wake of the war. On the 18th of November 1918, he died at the age of 29.
Two weeks later, his obituary appeared in the pages of “The Tribunal”, a CO newspaper:
“The death of Lawrence Deller, which took place on Nov 18, means another sad loss to the CO cause. I had the pleasure of seeing much of him and his devoted wife when staying at Princetown in 1916. He was a portrait painter and a brilliant musician. Our very intelligent Home Office decided that the best way to punish such a man for convictions sincerely held was to force him to make mail bags and dig the ground, and so the nation was depreived of the gifts of one of her gifted sons for the period of the war.
Mr Deller was a churchman brought up in a Conservative and non-progressive atmosphere of a Cathedral town, and when in 1914 he and his wife decided to take the unpopular side about the war, as pacifists on religious grounds they did not even known of the existence of other men and women holding the same views. Their quiet heroism impressed me again and again. Mr Deller was always cheerful. Industry was added to his other gifts and after the day’s work at Princetown he would use his spare moments for portrait painting. His portraits of the COs at Dartmoor included many types and would make a most unique collection.
Even in prison and guardroom he was able to see the best and most amusing side of his experiences. To his gentle and refined nature, the experiences he passed through must often have been most uncongenial, but he accepted them with a cheerfulness and submission which can never be forgotten by those who knew him. He welt that the cause for which he stood was worth his best and he gave it ungrudgingly, In recalling him not it seems natural to express to his wife and friends our congratulations on his faithful service before adding our sorrow for his early death.”

Lawrence Deller is of 69 Conscientious Objectors who died in the First World War to be named on the CO memorial plaque. It is not only a memorial to the lives cut tragically short by negligence, punishment and the callous illegality of the system, but also to the hope and aims of COs like Lawrence who made a decision to work towards a better world.