Alexander Peddieson was a Congregationalist Objector from Glasgow who sadly became one of the more than 100 Conscientious Objectors to die as a result of their treatment during the First World War.

Alexander had a religious objection to warfare, and as a Congregationalist, had strong support from fellow believers around the country. He would have become eligible for Conscription in 1916, but seems to not have been called up under the Military Service Act until 1917. Regardless of when his call-up was issued, Alexander would have applied to the local Glasgow Tribunal for exemption as a Conscientious Objector on the basis of his Christian faith. It appears that the Tribunal did not grant him the exemption he was looking for - or possibly any form of exemption at all, as by October 1917 he had been escorted under guard to the Highland Light Infantry, and there expected to willingly become a serving soldier.

Instead, Alexander took up an “Absolutist” stance on military service, and refused to follow orders, or acknowledge the authority and legitimacy of the Army in any way. This stance necessarily led to conflict with Army authority, and Alexander was faced with a court martial on the 19th October 1917. The hearing was short and perfunctory, with Alexander receiving the by-then usual verdict - 1 year’s hard labour, to be served in a civilian prison.

In 1917 this meant Wormwood Scrubs, where the Central Tribunal met to judge COs cases and pass men on to the Home Office Scheme. Alexander was heard by the Central Tribunal in November, but it was not until January 1918 that a decision was made. Judged to be a “genuine CO”, an admission that imprisoning Alexander was a crime in any sane system, he was passed suitable for the Home Office Scheme, and sent to Knutsford Camp where, along with several hundred other COs, he would effectively exchange his labour for marginally better conditions than the prison he had been released from.

Sadly for Alexander, Home Office Scheme postings could be changed rapidly, and at some point in 1918, most likely May, he was sent to Red Roses Camp, soon to become notorious for its terrible facilities. It was so well known as a place of deprivation and neglect that Sylvia Pankhurst, writing after the war, would include it as an example of the mistreatment of COs on the Scheme. According to her, Red Roses Camp had “no sanitary facilities and water had to be carried a quarter of a mile. The sleeping cubicles, each of which had bunks for four men, measured only 71/2 by 91/2 feet.” (1)

In such conditions, with dozens of men crammed into cold, damp accommodation, without sanitation and with meagre rations, illness was rife. In November and December 1918, influenza hit the camp and with the men already weakened by the starvation diet they had been forced to endure, they were hard hit by the pandemic. Alexander was one of the last men well enough to support his comrades on the scheme, and did so in the near total absence of medical provision. With the Camp manager refusing to provide support or trained medical staff, it fell to Alexander to try to help the others as they fell critically ill. Finally, Alexander himself died around the 25th of November.

The newspaper of the No-Conscription Fellowship, “The Tribunal” reported on Alexander’s death and that of another CO at Red Roses Camp:

“It is one of the worst cases of Home Office callousness and neglect that have come before us, and our readers know the list is a long one. No words can express our indignation at the way these men were treated. The picture of our comrade Peddieson, heroically struggling to nurse the rest, his requests to the agent for help, met only by insults, until at the last, worn out, he was stricken down and died, is one we are not likely to forget.”

Alexander is remembered, along with many of the other COs that died during the war, on the CO Memorial Plaque, today hanging in the offices of the Peace Pledge Union. His name is inscribed under a phrase that sums up Alexander’s objection, and hope for a better and more peaceful world to come: “it is by the faith of the idealist that the ideal comes true."

(1) The Home Front (1932) Sylvia Pankhurst