Herbert Nash was a coach and motor trimmer working and living in North Kensington in 1916. As a 20 year old single man, he was one of the first men to be called up as conscripts under the group system and very quickly found himself in front of the Kensington Tribunal. By the end of March 1916 he was enlisted in the Non-Combatant Corps, a section of the army set up to allow Conscientious Objectors who would accept it a military role providing logistical support for the army, with the guarantee that they would not be ordered to kill. While many Conscientious Objectors found this compromise unacceptable, it appears that Herbert did not and after two months in the NCC in Britain, he was posted to France where it is likely he spent the rest of the war. NCC units in France worked behind the lines on a variety of tasks from road building to sanitation work. As an NCC man, Herbert would have been given the assurance that he would not have to use or even handle weapons or ammunition. While their position as non-combatants in the army could cause friction, for thousands of men this was an acceptable way to act out their conscientious principles.