MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT |
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MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT | |
| FRANCIS JAMES MUNNS 1892 - 1966 |
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| Francis James Munns was born in Plumstead in 1892. In 1901 he was living with his family, father Walter and mother Elizabeth, at 3 Majendie Road. Walter was a lighterman, probably working on barges in and around Woolwich. A lighterman was a skilled, licensed profession, although by the beginning of the 20th century they were diminishing in number. The family also consisted of an older brother, Walter who was an office boy and two older sisters, Annie and Una. By 1911 brother Walter seems to have left home but the family was joined by a nine year old nephew, Herbert Clarke. Francis' profession was given as student teacher. In July 1916 at letter was published in the Kentish Independent from a soldier serving in France. In it he decried the number of 'young men refusing to fight for their comrades' and exhorted the conscientious objectors to 'come out here and see the destruction the Huns have carried out...'. Francis Munns wrote a reply that was published on August 9th. In it he explains; "We conscientious objectors refuse to join the Army - refuse to surrender our individual freedom to the dictates of the militarist because we believe that ours is the only way that freedom can be secured to the people. He (the soldier) asks the question, 'Are we not fighting for a good cause?' I tell him frankly 'No'. None of the belligerent countries has a cause that is worth fighting for...While he is patriotically doing his bit his masters in England for whose benefit he is fighting, are equally patriotically making their bit. While the old men above military age, who condemn the shirker and slacker, are so patriotic that, when they lend their money to the Government they require not only a guarantee for the return of that money but also a 5 per cent bribe to encourage them to lend it. "Does not your correspondent realise that all the suffering that he mentions - destruction, starvation, bloodshed, Zeppelin raids, etc. - is due to the war; and the only way to stop it is to stop the war? "He says that when we object to taking the place of a fallen comrade we are fighting against Christianity. If Christian teaching bids us don khaki and prepare to shoot, poison, mutilate and maim our fellow-beings and starve women and children, then it is suspiciously like the doctrine which is popularly attributed to General von Bernhadi. [Bernhadi was a Prussian militarist who published a bellicose book in 1911 called Germany and the next War]. 'What would England be like now if we all objected to fight?' he asks. All our masters - Vickers, Krupps, Rothschilds, Herr Balin (The German director of the world's largest shipping line) etc. would be weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth while the English worker would be holding out the hand of fellowship to his German comrade and together they would remove most of the present evils under which we suffer and build the co-operative commonwealth." This letter prompted an angry, disdainful response, headlined 'The Conscientious Objector Funkers' from Herbert Glanville-West, also a member of the British Expeditionary Force. In it he argues that it is German militarism that is entirely to blame for the war and describes the life of two young Belgian refugee children that he has encountered. 'Does he realise', he asks 'that he has his freedom at the price of the blood of his forebears spilt in many a gruesome and bloody war?' The soldier ends, 'There will be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth in other quarters if he has the impudence to offer his hand to any of us when we have removed the cancer that threatened to consume his boasted individual freedom and precious life.' Francis would have applied to the Woolwich Tribunal for exemption as a CO and must have been turned down, because by 24th November 1916 he had been arrested as an absentee, having failed to report to barracks. He gave as his reason the fact that he was a Unitarian and member of the Non Conscription Fellowship and of the National Union of Teachers. A CO who had been arrested as an absentee was unlikely to follow orders once delivered under escort to the army, and Francis was no exception. He was court martialled soon after his arrival at the Winchester depot and sentenced to one year of Hard Labour to be served at Wormwood Scrubs. From Wormwood Scrubs he was transferred to Wandsworth Civil prison in February 1917 and released in April of that year. He was court martialled for a second time in September 1917, presumably for failing to report for duty, and sent to Winchester Civil prison for two years' hard labour. In July he was diagnosed as having failing eyesight but was still in Winchester until October of that year. He was finally discharged on the 8th of April 1919 and had served three sentences totalling more than two years. These repeated sentences are common to absolutist COs like Francis, who decided to stay in prison often with no idea when they would be released rather than go against their consciences and participate in the bloody slaughter of the First World War. Francis Munns married in 1920 and lived until the age of 74. He died in Woolwich in 1966. 014
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