Harold Gartside, an engineering student at Manchester University, was 19 when he received his call-up. He was a Quaker attendee and involved with the No Conscription Fellowship; not surprisingly, when he was called up, he asked for an exemption from the military.

In March 1916, Harold claimed absolute and complete exemption at the Military Service Tribunal in Glossop, saying that "as a Christian, he could not take part in either combatant or non-combatant service." He said that "He did not see that his training as an engineer would in any way help in carrying on the war."

The examination continued with a series of commonly used 'trick' questions, such as reported by the Glossop Chronicle:

The Clerk: Do you hold that, according to the teaching of Christ, you should not defend yourself if a German came here and attacked you? — Yes.
The Clerk: If a man strikes you on the one cheek, would you turn him the other as the Bible says— Well, I should not strike him back.
The Clerk, if it happened to your wife or child, would you not strike the assailant? — No.

The application was refused, and Harold should have gone to the recruiting office but presumably did not as three months later, on 14 July, Harold was charged with absenting himself under the Military Service Act despite several requests to present himself at the recruiting office. He was fined £3 and handed over to a military escort. The clerk added that the fine should be deducted from the prisoner's military pay.

Two weeks later, at Fort Brockhurst, Gosport, Harold was court-martialed for disobeying a military order and sentenced to 112 days' hard labour in Portsmouth prison.

Conscientious objectors who failed to obtain an exemption at their original tribunal could appeal the decision to the Central Tribunal at Wandsworth prison. Two weeks later, the Central Tribunal accepted Harold as a genuine CO and allowed him to participate in the Home Office Scheme and undertake work of 'national importance'. Two weeks later, and for the following four months of bitter cold winter, Harold joined other COs in roadbuilding in Newhaven. He then spent a few months in various employment under the Home Office Scheme until he was released after the war.

Harold was one of eight conscientious objectors we know of in Glossop