Timeline of conscientious objection in Britain

Before World War I

Britain did not have a modern conscription law before World War I, although in previous wars many men had been forced to fight by medieval levies and press-gangs.

Some in the British establishment had been campaigning for military conscription via the National Service League, founded in 1902. Britain was at the time fighting the Boer War in South Africa, which was horrific for soldiers and civilians alike.

The National Service League’s president, Lord Roberts, argued that a Briton’s first duty was to defend Britain and her empire, but there was a lot of public resistance to conscription out of concern for individual liberty.

As a European war looked more likely, the pressure to introduce conscription grew. There was also a naval arms race between Britain and Germany in the years before the First World War, with both countries competing to build more powerful warships in greater numbers. Conscription was already used by other major European powers such as France, Germany, the Ottoman Empire and Russia.

World War I

Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914 after Germany’s invasion of Belgium. Britain’s army was smaller than those of France or Germany at the start of the First World War, although it had the strongest navy in the world. There was enthusiasm to enlist at the start of the war, so the British army’s ranks swelled with volunteers for a while, but the war dragged on with high casualties.

Worried that it was only a matter of time before the British Government brought in military conscription, peace activists began the No Conscription Fellowship in November 1914 to campaign against conscription. No Conscription Branches sprung up across the country. They believed in “the international friendship of free peoples”.

Despite this, in 1916 the British government passed the Military Service Act which introduced conscription for all single men in Britain aged 18 to 41. There were some exceptions for men who did jobs thought essential to the war, or were medically unfit, or had to look after children or relatives alone.

Importantly, the No Conscription Fellowship was successful in securing another exemption from conscription: the “Conscience Clause” of the Act meant that men who could show a “conscientious objection” to fighting would also be exempt. They would have to prove this at a tribunal, and were still punished if they refused to do non-military war work.

There were around 16,000 conscientious objectors in Britain during the First World War. Some had religious objections. For example, many Christians – particularly Quakers, Methodists and Seventh Day Adventists – believed that the Bible taught that killing another human being was a sin, whatever the circumstances. A significant number were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Others were motivated by political beliefs, refusing to kill fellow workers from other countries. There was a lot of pressure and social stigma directed at “conchies”, who were accused of cowardice and disloyalty.

After the Military Service Act, the No Conscription Fellowship continued to raise awareness of the harsh treatment of conscientious objectors and to campaign for the repeal of conscription and an end to the war.

By 1918, the British armed forces were experiencing a critical shortage in personnel again, and so the government tried to introduce conscription in Ireland. This provoked widespread protest, particularly from Catholic communities, trade unions and independence groups. Many took the Anti-Conscription Pledge. In the end, the law was passed but never acted on. The anger towards Britain arguably contributed to future resistance to British rule.

The First World War ended in 1918 with 886,000 British dead: about 6% of the adult male population. A total of 16 million people died because of the war.

Britain suspended military conscription in 1920. War Secretary Winston Churchill announced that conscripts would be replaced by a volunteer army of 220,000 men.

“Interwar” years

After World War I, some COs dedicated themselves to relief work, such as the Quaker Corder Catchpool who travelled to Germany after release from prison.

Between the two World Wars, the raw and recent memory of the “Great War” fuelled a strong peace movement in Britain and around the world. As well as the many dead, huge numbers were living with life-changing injuries and traumatic memories.

There was hope that, through the League of Nations, “law not war” could prevail around the world.  Anti-war sentiment was strong in Britain. For example, 390,296 Welsh women signed a petition for peace in 1923. They wanted the United States to join and lead the new League of Nations for a peaceful world. The USA never joined the League of Nations, but it would be a founding member of the United Nations. Learn more about the petition from the Welsh Centre for International Affairs. 

The profiteering of the arms industry was also subject to particular scrutiny and criticism.

Evoking the poem In Flanders Fields, red poppies were worn from 1921 to raise money for injured British veterans. In 1933, white poppies started to be worn by the Women’s Co-operative Guild. They feared that the red poppy was fuelling militarism and making future wars more likely.

That same year the Oxford Union, famous for holding debates, passed a motion that ‘This House will in no circumstances fight for King and Country.”

Canon Dick Sheppard, a popular radio broadcaster and Anglican priest, used an open letter in the press to call on people to ‘outlaw war from their personal lives’, gaining an enormous response. Soon after, the Peace Pledge Union was formed in 1934, reaching a peak of 140,000 members by 1940 and going on to become Britain’s oldest secular pacifist organisation today. The “PPU” also adopted the white poppy, aiming to remember all those who died in war (not only the military dead), and to oppose war.

For Britain, 1918-39 were not exactly “interwar years” because British troops were involved in wars and fighting in what is today Ireland and Northern Ireland, India, Pakistan, Russia and Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, Somaliland, Nigeria and across the Middle East.

Despite this, for most of the 1930s there was political agreement that the armed forces should be made up of volunteers and that conscription should not be used in peace time. Prime Ministers such as Stanley Baldwin and then Neville Chamberlain promised as much.

British foreign policy in Europe was trying to prevent or at least delay a war with a re-armed Germany. Britain’s army numbered nearly 900,000, but they were spread around the world to control its colonies. With war looking more likely, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain introduced the Military Training Act in May 1939, a more limited version of conscription. The Training Act made single men aged 20 and 21 do six months of military training. 240,000 registered for service this way before the war.

World War II

Britain entered the Second World War on 3 September 1939 after Germany’s invasion of Poland.

This time, British Government did not delay in introducing conscription. The National Service Act was passed on the same day as the declaration of war, bringing in conscription on similar terms to the First World War.

Again there were exemptions for conscientious objectors, people considered ‘medically unfit', and people who worked in protected jobs like making weapons. Prime Minster Chamberlain felt conscientious objection had been poorly handled in the First World War, so the tribunals were changed. There would be no military officers acting as prosecutors and tribunals could (at least in theory) include working class people. They would also allow absolute exemption – at least in theory. This mean that an absolutist could be exempted from any form of service, including civilian work, on the grounds that they believed any such work was unconscionable as it could contribute to the war and killing, however indirectly.

Conscription was widened to include women in December 1941. A second National Service Act created the power to call-up all unmarried women and all childless widows between the ages of 20 and 30. They would serve in the various Women’s Services, such as the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS). Women could also claim conscientious objection and would then be referred to civilian work in industry, hospitals or the land. If they refused these options they would be referred to a Women’s Tribunal. Estimates vary between 900 and 2,000 women who registered as conscientious objectors, and 200 were sent to prison when they refused the order to work.

Organisations like the Peace Pledge Union continued to oppose the war, with 2,000 members attending a meeting to call for a negotiated peace in 1940. PPU membership peaked at 140,000 in 1940 before declining. Some pacifists faced arrest for voicing their views. They were accused too of siding with British fascists, who also argued for an end to the war against Nazi Germany. There were so many pacifist organisations by World War II that they joined together to create the Central Board of Conscientious Objectors. They educated people about their legal rights, helped objectors prepare for tribunals and raised awareness of persecution.

Some tribunals were harsher than others. Total rejection ranged from 6% to 41% according to Spartacus Education.

From the time Britain’s army was defeated and evacuated at Dunkirk in 1940, support for pacifism and conscientious objectors decreased over the course of the war, with membership of the Peace Pledge Union dipping below 100,000 by 1945. Many employers, including over 70 councils, sacked COs from their jobs.

There was also a decline in the number of people willing to object as the war went on.

 During the Second World War, it’s estimated that around 67,000 British men and 900 women registered as conscientious objectors. This is far more than the first war, although their stories are often less remembered in the historical narrative. Along with those who had religious or socialist reasons for becoming a CO, there were others such as Welsh, Scottish and Irish nationalists who felt no loyalty to the British government; and sympathisers with Germany or the Soviet Union, although some of these last two groups changed their minds when Germany invaded Russia.

About 6,000 COs are thought to have been imprisoned in Britain during World War II. Conscription was used in other parts of the British Empire, with conscientious objectors registering from Canada to New Zealand. India did not have conscription, but still fielded the largest volunteer army in history, numbering 2.5 million.

After World War II

After World War II ended in 1945, leaving 70-85 million people dead, peace groups focused on direct relief for war-torn populations, helping refugees and providing food and medical supplies.

Britain did not suspend military conscription with the end of the Second World War in 1945. It wasn't until 1947 that the last service people and COs were gradually released from their duties (or their prisons). Britain was still fighting in different parts of the world and the British government argued that the Cold War between the Soviet Union and “The West”, including Britain, meant a big army was still needed. A new National Service scheme in 1947 kept conscription going for 18-26-year-old men, requiring two years in the military and three years in the reserves. Women were no longer called up. The Central Board for Conscientious Objectors continued to support 10,000 COs who registered after the war, some of whom went to prison.

National Service did not end until 1960, with the last conscripted soldiers serving until 1963.

Again, the end of the World War did not mean that British soldiers were not involved in fighting. Conscripted troops were likely to see fighting in places like Greece, Malaya, Palestine, Korea or Egypt. Britain continued to be involved in conflicts somewhere or other year after year right up to the present day (2025).

The peace movement also continued to respond to world events, including the advent and spread of nuclear weapons, the Cold War, the USA’s war in Vietnam, and more recent conflicts such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Peace Pledge Union continued to campaign for the abolition of military conscription, also called “national service”.

In 1987, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights affirmed that conscientious objection to military service is a right derived from the right freedom of thought, conscience, and religion (Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).  Despite this, roughly 100 countries continue to use conscription and often imprison conscientious objectors. (See https://wri-irg.org/en/co/rtba/index.html for more information.)

Some British Governments have considered a return to conscription, most recently in 2024 when the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to bring back a form of national service if re-elected. He went on to lose the election.

More sources:

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS 1916 to the Present Day

https://spartacus-educational.com/2WWco.htm

https://wri-irg.org/en/co/rtba/index.html

https://www.britishlegion.org.uk/get-involved/remembrance/stories/the-last-national-serviceman

https://www.wcia.org.uk/peace-heritage/womens-peace-petition/

https://www.ppu.org.uk/

https://www.menwhosaidno.org/

https://www.historyhit.com/facts-about-conscientious-objection/

Recurring dates:

International Conscientious Objectors Day, 15 May

International Peace Day, 21 September

Prisoners of Peace Day, 1 December