4.  Conscientious Objectors

Conscientious objectors (COs)

         Cambridge, as an intellectual centre predictably produced a goodly number of cases of conscientious objection, including many students and some high-profile ones such as Professor Pigou. Professor Pigou was a fellow of King’s College and a professor of economics. He was the son of an army officer, and in 1916 – at the age of 39 - declared a conscientious objection. He really, really argued his case. However, he did serve in vacations in France & Belgium, with the Friends (Quakers’) Ambulance Unit, and deliberately chose to go into considerable danger. He was no coward.

         Here in Shelford too there were those who chose to refuse to fight.

The George Brothers

         The Georges were an old Shelford family. Mrs George was widowed early. She ran a newspaper and general stores, in Woollards Lane, where Shelford Spice/Brunch Base now is. This picture shows the shop in 1916, when the billboards read “Brilliant victories on the Somme”, “Zeppelin shot down”.

         Mrs George had eight sons. By 1911 Harold, who was 28, was married, while Reuben (33), Victor (26), Fred (23) and Clarence (21) still lived at home. The men took very different paths in the war.

         Harold was a skilled man, a carpenter, and his role in the war lay in the repair and maintenance of aeroplanes. The planes of the time were incredibly flimsy, a mixture of wood and canvas. The most skilled job of all was shaping the propellors, and these were made of wood.

         Victor served with the Royal Engineers, and was killed in 1917 in Belgium. He was awarded a medal for bravery by the Belgian government.

         Reuben claimed exemption on the grounds of his occupation. He was a nurseryman, together with Victor, with land off Hinton Way, where the Macaulay estate now is. As such he could claim his work was of national importance, and also, being self-employed that his business interests would be irremediably damaged by serving in the army. His case, however, was complicated by his brothers’ stance. Fred and Clarence both declared a conscientious objection to the war. Reuben was finally granted conditional exemption, provided he remained a nurseryman (CIP 5 May 1916).

         Fred and Clarence had to argue their case before the Tribunals over a period of two months. They argued that their objection was religious. They were initially granted exemption from combat, but when they appealed against this, refusing to serve the war in any capacity, including the Royal Army Medical Corps, that exemption was revoked. They suffered for their pacifist beliefs. Clarence was sent to Bedford Jail, then Dartmoor. You can be sure his treatment there was rough. The police and warders had no sympathy with “shirkers”. This was not a soft option.

         Fred was sent to Wakefield Jail, then spent a period stone-breaking in Northumberland. The housing would have been primitive, deliberately hard and cold, and the work intentionally humiliating. According to their sons, they did not speak much about this time in their lives.

         I wondered did the family in Shelford suffer any stigma for the brothers’ beliefs? On the whole I think not. There was strong feeling about conscientious objectors, but two brothers were serving, and one was killed. So the George family could be considered to have suffered with the rest. It seems at least possible that the community had enough humanity to accept the family as it was.

 Edgar Turner

         Edgar Turner was another Shelford conscientious objector. He lived with his widowed mother in Tunwells Lane. He came from a large family. They were a chapel family, and Edgar joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation (a CO organization) in July 1915. Brothers Ralph and Fred were serving in the army. His brother Harold was a stockman at Station Farm and exempted. In 1916 Edgar was 20, working as a clerk in Cambridge. He appealed on the grounds of religious conviction, and also as the only support of his widowed mother, who was ill with cancer. This the vicar confirmed. His fiancée, Rosie Williams, who was the daughter of a Shelford shopkeeper, was his staunch supporter. She spoke up for him at the Appeal Tribunal. She said he had suffered for his views: “He had been taunted a tremendous lot by the people in the village”. If the Germans came and brutalized her, the committee asked Turner, wouldn’t he defend her? His reply was, “I should die first, but I would not use arms to defend her”. His appeal was dismissed, and he was called up. When he didn’t show, he was called before the magistrates and handed over to the military.

         There is a scrapbook in Cambridgeshire Archives which charts his subsequent experiences. You can follow his efforts to gain exemption, and his increasing consternation at finding that no-one will listen. He was sent to the barracks at Bury. When he refused to undress for a medical examination, the sergeant stripped him. The doctor commented, “You are the best figure I have examined today”. The implication is clear.

         Next day he was called for parade. He was taken to the clothing department, where he again refused to undress. The sergeant forcibly stripped him and dressed him in khaki. He was sent to Dover. A newspaper cutting which he pasted in his scrapbook relates that the army sent a group of hard-core COs abroad, with a view to shooting them as traitors if they failed to obey orders. They were punished by crucifixion, sentenced to death, and then reprieved. The case caused a scandal and led to less extreme treatment for COs thereafter. Nevertheless Turner must have felt he had had a narrow escape. He was put into Canterbury, then Maidstone jail. Finally he was allowed to write a letter to his mother. It’s a very moving document. His love for her is evident. He explains that he had received hard treatment for the first 28 days, but that this had now eased off. He was sent before another tribunal at Wormwood Scrubs. By this time a structure had been set up for COs, and he signed an undertaking to work for the COs Committee. He was then sent to the COs’ Work centre at Wakefield, where Fred George also fetched up, at least for a time.

         His fiancée, Rosie Williams, supported him unfailingly. I am pleased to report that they married in 1918, and lived until the 1970s, in and around Shelford. But I assume from the survival of the scrapbook that he never lost his sense of injustice, and wanted his tale to be told.

Sources

Newspapers: Newspapers, Cambridge Chronicle (CC), Cambridge Independent Press(CIP), as follows,

Georges, CIP 3/10/17/31 Mar, 14/21 Apr, 5 May 1916.

Turner, 3 Mar, Apr 14, Jun 16 1916.

Interview with Eric George, interview with Peter George, Great Shelford Oral History Group, extracts published in Some Shelford Lives, 2008.

My thanks to Cambridgeshire Archives for permission to use Arthur Edgar Turner’s scrapbook, CRO R111/052.

v1 © Helen Harwood, uploaded February 2025