William Edgar Watts was a schoolmaster living and working in Bethnal Green whose CO experience shows some of the pettiness of the system. William stood before the Bethnal Green Tribunal in March 1916. He was denied exemption but by 1917 had been granted exemption based on doing Work of National Importance as a schoolteacher. Not only did it take a year of appeals and questions to get WNI, but when it was it came under what the tribunals called  the "principle of equal sacrifice".  It was widely agreed that COs should have to suffer as much as possible, whatever type of exemption they gained, so that their sacrifice was equal to that of the fighting soldier. William Watts was simply sent to work far outside of London, having to find a new school and lodgings and being separated from his family. This kind of pointlessly vindictive treatment was typical of the pettiness COs faced in their wartime experiences.