Arthur Horton was a longstanding and active member of the Manchester branch of the No-Conscription Fellowship and, like many other COs in the organisation, took an Absolutist position towards military service. His stance was that he could no more personally kill someone than he could aid others to do so, and would make no compromise with civil government or the military under compulsion. This absolutist stance led to his arrest after his application for exemption was rejected and, with brief pauses for periodic courts martial, several prison sentences.

By late 1917, Arthur had been sentenced to prison for disobeying military orders on three separate occasions and had spent time in Wormwood Scrubs, Wandsworth and, finally, Shrewsbury Prison. Each sentence had seen him grow steadily more ill, until by December 1917, his case was extremely severe.

The No-Conscription Fellowship, always alert to cases of Conscientious Objectors suffering as a result of the harsh prison regime printed part of Arthur’s experiences in the Tribunal, on the 10th of January 1918:

“When arrested he was in robust health and was classified A1 by the military, and his sister writes of never having seen her brother ill before. It is clear, therefore that his illness is entirely due to the rigours of his long imprisonment. It appears that at Wandsworth prison last spring he developed a cough that he could not get rid of - that he had an attack of colic in the summer and at his last court-martial spoke of his reduced condition to his relatives. On December 9th last bronchial pneumonia set in but he was not placed in bed until four days had passed”.

The Tribunal printed a short update in the next issue suggesting Arthur had rallied and was showing improvement, but on Thursday 24th January:

“It is with deepest regret that we announce that Arthur Horton, whose serious illness has been referred to in previous issues of “The Tribunal” died on Wednesday last, in Shrewsbury Prison.”

Arthur’s Obituary gives a startling insight into the conditions Conscientious Objectors had to endure in prison, and the negligence and malice they suffered through. Arthur wrote extensively on the terrible lack of food and rest, which, combined with the endless damp and cold of Shrewsbury prison, contributed to his early death. Testimony was gathered by the NCF from other COs suffering near-starvation and medical malpractice in prison, showing that the experiences which led to Arthur’s death were neither unique or unusual.

Questions were asked of his death in Parliament and a request for an official inquiry was made. Evidence was given by Arthur’s father and also by his comrade J. H Hudson, a Labour Parliamentary candidate, but to no avail:

“When Horton was first taken ill there was a spell of cold weather and there was no heating in the prison. His own cell was exceedingly cold, and he had to tramp around for hours, but Horton told him he could not tramp around his own cell because it made him giddy. Horton took his mattress down and covered himself with rugs, but was then told by the Chief Warder that this was not allowed. He complained bitterly of the cold, and developed a severe cough which echoed through the prison (called by the prison doctor in his evidence “a little cough”). Mr Hudson further said that Horton, on being advised to consult the doctor, said that the latter never examined him at all, but only prescribed cough mixture, and that his were not the only complaints of improper treatment by the doctor, as the prison was full of them.

In spite of this evidence the jury returned the verdict that death was due to natural causes following pneumonia, and added that having seen the dietary table, they considered it was good! We can only conclude that the jurymen’s ideas of weight and quantity are extraordinarily vague, for to an unbiased mind the discrepancy between the prison dietary scale and the amount of food required to keep a normal person in health outside prison is only too striking.”

Both during the inquiry and in Parliament, the issues surrounding Arthur’s treatment, the negligence of the prison doctor and the subsequent corruption of the inquiry were swept under the carpet and ignored. Sadly, such cover-ups for medical malpractice, abuse and illegal punishments were all too frequent as more and more COs died as a direct result of malice and incompetence.

Arthur was buried in Manchester, in the same cemetery as other COs from the area who had lost their lives. On his headstone is a simple inscription that says much about the cause he struggled and ultimately died for:
“A Martyr of Conscience.
His end was peace”