THE MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT | INDEX
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THE MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT | INDEX |
| JAMES PATRICK GARDNER 1883 - |
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| James Gardner was a committed member of the Independent Labour Party working as an Architectural Sculptor in 1916. At his Tribunal hearing in Hammersmith he was passed Exempt from Conscription provided he took up Work of National Importance (WNI). COs who took up WNI were often expected to take on unfamiliar jobs at short notice, long distances from home and on subsistence-level wages. For single men, this was sometimes acceptable, but for James Gardner this was a step too far. No doubt influenced by his strong committment to the Labour movement, he refused to work for a pittance that could not stretch to support his family. After refusing to work in a sanctioned trade, he went to the Pelham committee which oversaw COs undergoing WNI to campaign for a better occupation. As records after September 1916 are not found, it is likely that he secured a higher rate of pay and continued on WNI. Like many other political COs, he carried on in politics after the war, becoming MP for Hammersmith in 1923 and 1926. Unlike most CO MPs, his official political life began very soon after the war - joining Hammersmith borough council in 1919, before the last of his CO comrades had been released from prison. He would lose his seat in the Commons in 1931, but would remain a member of Hammersmith borough council until his death in 1937.
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