by Chris Draper
The
organised labour movement colluded with the killing but rebel
socialists and anarchists refused to bang the jingo drum and here in
the North West thirteen brave anarchists confronted the rabid State
and refused to bear arms.
Atheists
go to Hell Conscription started in 1916 and the only individuals the
State considered fit for ‘conscientious objection' (CO) were
pacifists obeying orders from GOD. Political objections were
derided and dismissed so anarchists were on a hiding to nothing
appealing to the authorities. Once conscription began everyone was
deemed to have enlisted
so if you didn’t turn yourself in you would be arrested, fined and
handed over to the military. Any refusal to follow orders then led
to court martial and imprisonment with hard labour, usually for 112
days for a first offence.
On completion of this sentence you were handed back to the military
and the whole cycle recommenced with subsequent sentences extended up
to two years and continuing even after hostilities Workers’
Playtime Thirteen anarchists from the North -West of England defied
the draft and refused to fight. This was a pretty good
contribution, comprising more than a third of the total AC’s
(Anarcho-Conchies) from the whole of England. This comparative
strength
derived
from the influence of the Stockport Workers Freedom Group (WFG)
.
The
group started up in 1913 and the following February opened their own
clubrooms at 18 Park Street, Hazel Grove, with funds provided by
millionaire anarchist and Kodak director, George Davison. WFG proved
a powerhouse of anarchist propaganda and in September 1913 under the
auspices of the group, Guy Aldred delivered a series of eight
open-air lectures in Stockport’s ‘Armoury & Mersey
Squares” on revolutionary topics from, ‘Capitalism and
the Child’ to ‘Direct Action, Legislation and the Social
War’ .
Once
conscription started Aldred was himself imprisoned as a conchie but
the Stockport comrades were ready primed to resist
.
Gone
Fishing
Legislation
enacting Conscription received Royal Assent on 27 January 1916 In
Stockport magistrates Court, ‘Inspector Billinge said that on
February 1 the Chief Constable took out a warrant under the Defence
of the Realm Act to search the premises, 18 Park Street occupied by
the Workers Freedom Group or Anarchist Club’. The police
failed to arrest anyone on that occasion but seized, ‘a
number of documents and pamphlets, many of which were of a
revolutionary nature and, no doubt, cry prejudicial to recruiting’
.
The
Chief Constable wanted to destroy everything but Herbert Holt , a
leading member of WFG, argued their literature should be returned.
Although magistrates agreed Holt could retain a few titles for some
inexplicable reason they incinerated: ‘Down With
Conscription’, ‘The International Anarchist
Manifesto on the War’ and ‘Apes and Patriotism!’
Patriotic Apes.
Hazel Grove police had already removed
thousands of similar pamphlets from Langley Cottage, the Hazel Street
home of another WFG club member, commercial traveller WilliamJackson.
Jackson was grassed up by patriotic member of the local community,
John James Warren
after William gave him a publication entitled, ‘Unite Against
the British Prussians’. Warren testified that in January
he’d been a passenger on a train from Manchester to Hazel Grove
when Jackson was handing out these pamphlets to passengers. Warren
claimed he’d previously seen him giving them out in London Road,
Hazel Grove. As a God-fearing jingo he obeyed his patriotic duty and
took a copy down to Hazel Grove police station who’d responded with
a raid on Jackson’s home. In court, William argued for return of
the haul removedfrom
his house, which included, “2,000 pamphlets headed, Unite
Against the British Prussians–500 pamphlets headed, Fight Against
Conscription–100 pamphlets headed, ‘An Appeal to
Socialists–and 36 pamphlets headed, A General Strike’.
Unfortunately
magistrates ordered the destruction of all these classics but on the
plus side, they
did
return, ‘Tariff Reform Monthly Notes’!
Hard
Won Lessons
Anyone
intending to claim “Conscientious Objection” was permitted until
24 June 1916 to appeal
to a local ‘Military Service Tribunal (MST)’ but
ten of our conchies just ignored their call-up
papers and waited to be arrested as “absentees”. Of the remaining
three, one lad was yet under-age and the two that applied to have
their conscience adjudged by MST soon found their trust was
misplaced.
Twenty-six
year old lithographer Arthur Helsby applied to St Helen’s MST as
soon as conscription began, requesting exemption but offering to
serve in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). Instead
he was conscripted into the army’s ‘Non-Combat Corps (NCC)’
and on 25, March 1916carted
off to Kinmel army camp in North Wales for military training.
Helsby
soon learned ‘non-combatant’ didn’t exempt him
from the war machine. The NCC were
obliged to wear khaki, obey military orders, dig trenches, load
munitions– ‘soldiers without
guns' constantly the butt of insults and abuse from regular
troops. When Arthur objected, on Monday 29 May 1916 he was
covertly ‘rendered’ over to the killing fields of
France for the army’s cunning plan was to transport CO’s over to
the battlefield and terrify them into submission..
Refusing
orders under fire would then invite court -martial and death by
firing squad . Thirty-four of
Arthur’s fellow CO’s in France were formally condemned to death
be fore their sentences were commuted to 10 years imprisonment after
details of this army deception became public. So Helsby wasn’t
shot but for refusing to go on parade was subjected to 28 days of the
notorious 'Field Punishment Number One', which involved being
spread -eagled and chained to a field gun wheel, or fixed posts, and
was routinely described as 'crucifixion'.
On
10 June Arthur was court martialled at Calais and sentenced to two
years imprisonment with hard labour, Initially incarcerated in a
military prison at Rouen, on 4 July 1916 Helsby was conveyed, in
irons, back to England to serve his time at Winchester civil prison.
Public outcry over the army’s ‘extraordinary rendition’
prompted the authorities to commute Arthur’s sentence and
he was released from Winchester on the 29 August 1916, having served
barely two months of a two
year sentence. He was bloodied but unbowed Manchester MST.
Thirty-two
year old shipping clerk William Greaves made his application for
absolute exemption to
Manchester MST on 20 September 1916. Like Helsby, he was nevertheless
conscripted into the NCC.
He avoided being sent to France but didn’t accept this NCC role
and pressed his absolutist claim through both County and Central
Tribunals to no good effect. Formally consigned to the Royal Welsh
Fusiliers he was first court-martialled at Oswestry and sentenced to
serve 6 months in
Shrewsbury Prison. On his release from Shrewsbury he was returned to
Oswestry, court-martialled
again and then sentenced to a two-year stretch at Liverpool’s
Walton Gaol.
‘I
am an Anarchist!’
Oldham-born
Walter Barlow, a twenty-one year old “hat leather cutter”, of 2
Stream Terrace, Victoria Road, Stockport put his call-up papers in
the bin and was arrested as an absentee.
Unintimidated,
on Tuesday 13 June 1916 he told magistrates, ‘I am an
anarchist and
do not believe in the government of men by men’. Walter
went on to expose the cynical
function of MST’s in dividing and defusing the peace movement,
explaining ‘tribunals were used to smash opposition to the
Military Services Act’. Predictably, the magistrates were
unpersuaded, fined him 40s. and decreed he be handed over to the
military but the military never got their man.
For
the duration of WWI Walter Barlow went AWOL.
Collar
the Lot
With
gaping holes apparent in the conscription net and the last
opportunity past to appeal for exemption,
the Stockport authorities planned a return to 18 Park Street and this
time seize more than
just pamphlets.
‘Anarchist
Club Raid–Capture of Absentees at Stockport’ yelled the
Manchester Evening News of 22 September 1916’.
Herbert
Holt, William Hopkins, William Jackson and Charles Warwick arrested
for dodging the draft.
‘These
four were hauled up before magistrates along with a character the
authorities couldn’t then identify but we already know as our
recently returned hero from France and Winchester comrade Arthur
Helsby!
The
Stockport constabulary informed the press that this mysterious
character was ‘evidently a man of foreign extraction’,
which seems a harsh judgement on a man born in Liverpool.
During
ongoing enquiries the other four anarchists were each fined 40s. and
handed on to the military.
Once
the police resolved Arthur’s identity he was carted of to Leeds
Prison before being restored to the farcical conscription treadmill
and returned to “his regiment” at Kinmel Camp. Four further
anarchists were rapidly rounded up in raids in and in and around the
WFG clubrooms but I’ll identify them (a long with the two further
AC’s) and unravel the rest of this fascinating tale in part two
(coming soon on the NV website).
Peace
& Love
Christopher
Draper
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