THE MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT | INDEX
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THE MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT | INDEX |
| NORMAN CULLIS WOODCOCK 1890 - |
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| Norman Woodcock was a Wesleyan Methodist Conscientious Objector who was conscripted in early 1916. Single and in his mid-20s, Norman would have been among the first men to be called up under the Military Service Act, and his Tribunal hearing at Kew where he argued his case for exemption as a CO would have been in March of that year. He was passed Exempt from Combatant Service Only by the Kew Tribunal, a decision that Norman, taking the stance of an Absolutist CO, could not accept. Norman's stance was that he could not take up any role in the war, and would have no part in anything connected to or associated with the military machine. Accordingly, he refused to report to barracks when ordered, and was arrested as an absentee from the army on the 17th of April 1916. After a short hearing at Richmond police court, he was fined and handed over to the army. Three days later he was in the hands of the army, sent to the Non-Combatant Corps and expected to follow orders. Instead, he resisted, disobeying orders and facing a court martial. His refusal to follow military orders saw him transferred to the south coast, and from there to France. He became one of the "Frenchmen", a small group of Absolutist COs who were transported to France under guard, in the hope that brutal punishments and torture would force them to accept military laws. Norman would have been faced with confinement in cold, flooded cells, field punishment number one and constant threats of worse punishment - and death. Perhaps as a result of all this pressure, Norman gave in, and agreed to drill. Not as a member of the fighting army, but as a CO in the Non-Combatant Corps, the unit set up as an alternative for COs would agreed to serve, but not to fight. Norman stayed in the NCC throughout the war until his demobilisation in December 1919. While no longer an absolutist, he remained a Conscientious Objector, and was still consistently determined to never take life.
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