By the time the COs arrived in Dartmoor the civilian prisoners had been moved to other prisons and the prison decommissioned. In today’s terminology it was rebranded as the Princetown Work Centre although ‘work camp’ might have been more accurate. As part of a new approach to the ‘problem’ of COs locks were removed from cell doors, wardens reduced in number and rebranded as Instructors. The Governor expected obedience and any infringements of rules, however petty, was met with punishment. Although the work was meant to be of ‘national importance’ it was largely pointless, unproductive and essentially punitive such as the building of seven foot dry stone walls. Clearing and preparing Duchy of Cornwall land by hand while not very efficient the free labour was, undoubtedly, an attractive proposition for the Duke of Cornwall, later to become King Edward VIII. Although having joined the army it was thought that he was a too valuable asset to be sent to the front line.
While the Military Service Act included a clause for absolute exemption for ‘genuine’ COs only some 200 of the 20,000 men were classed as genuine and given absolute exemption. The others had difficult decisions to make about the extent to which they would make accommodations with the authorities.
COs were not allowed by the Tribunals to simply carry on with their everyday jobs as did the millions of men who had not been, and were not going to be, called up. To be called up and refuse warranted the severe punishment solitary confinement and hard labour in prison.
The Act produced an unexpected number of conscientious objectors and prisons began to fill up with an large numbers of unruly COs. The problem was not quite on the scale of the hulks in Plymouth harbour but serious enough for the government to look for other options.
Apart from absenting themselves there were three broad choices offered to COs. Hard labour in prison, putting on a uniform and becoming part of the Non Combatant Corp or agreeing to take up ‘prescribed work of national importance’. The men in Dartmoor were in the third category though even here some felt too compromised and asked to be returned to prison and solitary confinement. |