The Middlesex Military Service Tribunals and Their Appellants

‘Structures, Experiences and Discourses’: The Middlesex Military Service Tribunals and their Appellants, 1916-1918. Peter John Harris. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History. Degree is awarded by De Montfort University. Submitted June 2018. 1 Abstract The Military Service Tribunals were established following the First Military Service Act of January 1916 to consider applications for exemption from military service by men eligible for conscription. Conscription was not unprecedented in British history, but there was no tradition of military impressment en masse. The creation of tribunals was therefore a liberal semi-democratic society’s attempt at preserving yet prescribing the boundaries of individual liberties and conscience within the context of a deepening military crisis and the consequent extension and centralisation of state power. The tribunals were vehemently criticised by contemporaries for being incompetent and tyrannical with appellants, particularly those who sought exemption because of conscience. Early commentaries which emerged after the War and more recent histories have disseminated this view. A revisionist case has been made by other historians who draw attention to mitigating factors such as ambiguous legislation and the enormous caseloads with which the tribunals struggled. The traditional view is found not only within academic studies of the tribunals, but is exclusively the view of popular histories and the Media. Studies of the tribunals at national and local level exist and aspects of the history of the Middlesex Tribunals feature in Rae’s study of conscientious objectors (henceforth known as C.O. and C.Os.) and McDermott’s national study of the tribunals. However, no specialist study of Middlesex exists whose Appeal Tribunal’s documents fortuitously were preserved for future reference by the Ministry of Health. It is the purpose of this thesis to contribute originally to the study of the history of the tribunals through a specialised study of the Middlesex tribunal system in order to 2 determine whether it deserves the traditional reputation of the tribunals, or whether a revisionist case can be made. The task of chapter two is to assess how efficient the Middlesex tribunal system was by examining how they were established and what their procedures were. Chapter three will explore to what degree Middlesex appellants found the tribunal system to be hostile by exploring their subjective experiences of making an application or an appeal. A neglected aspect of the experience of objection is the experiences of the tribunalists themselves and this will be the focus of the latter part of chapter three. The application for exemption was made in writing and the hearings were dialogues between tribunalists and appellants. The discourses of exemption are therefore central to the history of the tribunals. Public and tribunal discourses are infamous for their condemnation of conscientious objectors. Chapter four will assess to what extent the public language of Middlesex and the tribunalists’ language was condemnatory. This chapter will also conduct an inquiry into the content of C.Os.’ written applications as no extensive investigation of the language of conscientious objectors exists. Finally, this thesis will evaluate the opinion that Tribunalists generally were myrmidons of the War Office by examining the politics and work of Herbert Nield, the Chairman of the Middlesex Appeal Tribunal. 3 Acknowledgements First, my greatest thanks are due to Professor Panikos Panayi for supervising my work and for making timely and decisive interventions to my work to give it shape and purpose, and without whose unflagging support and advice this thesis would never have been completed. My gratitude also goes to Professor Kenneth Morrison, Dr David Dee, Professor Matthew Taylor, Professor Elizabeth Tingle and Dr Beatriz Pichel of the History Department at De Montfort University who provided wise and incisive criticism of my work at annual reviews. I wish also to acknowledge the kind and helpful assistance I have received from staff at the National Archives, the British Library, the Library at Friends’ House and the Library and Doctoral College at De Montfort University. 4 Contents Page 1. Introduction: the Historical Context, the Tribunals’ Historiography, Sources, Methodology and Thesis Outline. 6 2. The Middlesex Tribunal System: Its Provenance, Organisation and Policies. 49 3. The Experiences of Objection. 103 4. The Middlesex Discourses of Conscientious Objection. 203 5. Herbert Nield: A Case Study of a Tribunalist 262 6. Conclusion 322 7. Bibliography 331 5 Introduction: The Historical Context, the Tribunals’ Historiography, Sources, Methodology and Thesis Outline. ‘The tribunals are appointed to hold the scales of justice evenly balanced between the Army and the men.’ (Herbert Nield, Chairman of the Middlesex Appeal Tribunal’s Second Section).1 The Coming of Conscription The implementation of conscription in Britain which necessitated the creation of the military service tribunals was a step-by-step process by which the categories of men compelled to serve were extended in response to military exigencies. The Military Service Act (or ‘Bachelors Bill’) entered the statue books on 27 January 1916 and came into force on 10 February. According to the Act, ‘every single man, ordinarily resident in Great Britain, who had reached the age of 18 but was not yet 41 on 15 August 1915 (and every similarly aged widower without dependent children)2 was declared ‘to have been duly enlisted in His Majesty’s regular forces for general service with the Colours or in the reserve for the period of the war, and to have been forthwith transferred to the reserve.’3 Problems in recruiting enough men to meet the needs of offensive strategies and casualties at the front and further pressures on manpower caused by the Easter Uprising in Dublin extended the scope of conscription through the Military Service (Session 2) Act which conscripted married men between 18 and 41.4 Greater powers of compulsion were given to the Army under the Military Service (Review of Exceptions) Act of April 1917. Men who had been previously rejected or discharged for medical 1 Quoted in J. H. Worrall’s The Tribunal Handbook, 4th edition (London, 1917), p. 45. 2 James McDermott, British Military Service Tribunals, 1916-1918: A Very Much Abused Body of Men (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2011), p. 14. 3 Military Service Act, 1916, 1. (1). 4 McDermott, British Military Service Tribunals, p. 25. 6 reasons and those who served with the territorial forces who had been judged medically incapable of foreign service were required to submit to a medical re-assessment by the army medical boards.5 With the prospect of American troops arriving on the Western Front in 1918, conscription became less concerned with large-scale recruitment and more with meeting manpower demands in the short-term. Legislation reflected this change in recruitment strategy.6 The Military Service Act 1918, which received royal approval on 19 February 1918, ‘provided for the cancellation of any exemption offered by reason of a man’s occupation...should military exigencies demand it.’7 The Act also cancelled the ‘two months grace period’ given to those whose exemptions for occupational reasons had expired.8 Three additional measures extended the conscription net to its furthest reach. The list of certified occupations was revised in January 1918 to make more young men of good health eligible for conscription. On 21 March 1918 the Germans’ ‘Michael Offensive’, designed to win the War before American troops tipped the balance irrevocably in the Allies’ favour, was unleashed. To meet this crisis, a royal proclamation on 20 April cancelled all exemption certificates held by men fit for general service under the age of 23. The Military Service (No. 2) Act, 1918, which came into force on 2 May, raised the military age to 51 and provided for the extension of the military age to 56, subject to an Order in Council. The aim was to release younger men on support and garrison duty for the front line. Irishmen were to be conscripted according to the terms of the Act, but for political reasons this was never implemented. The Act also provided for the power by Order in Council to cancel all existing exemptions without reference to the Tribunals. This power was duly exercised on 4 5 Ibid., p. 26. 6 Ibid., p. 28 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 7 June when exemptions were withdrawn from all 18-year-olds except for coalminers, dockworkers and men exempted for poor health. To speed up conscription, the head of the National Service Ministry, Sir Auckland Geddes, proposed abolishing the Tribunals and replacing them with county advisory committees that would be easier to influence, but this proposal did not survive the Act’s drafting stage. The proposal to expedite tribunal proceedings by abolishing appellants’ right to legal representation survived the Bill’s Third Reading, but was removed by amendment.9 A Tradition of Impressment Conscription during the First World War was unprecedented in British history in terms of the numbers of men pressed into service, but forced military service was not new to Britain. The Anglo-Saxons who fought at Hastings in 1066 were ‘citizen-warriors’ who were duty-bound to fight when their kingdom was threatened. Norman feudalism stipulated that each freeman owed military service to his lord. Both sides of the English Civil War dragooned men into the ranks. From the mid-eighteenth century, militia ballots were used to decide who would serve from among the shire’s eligible men. However, after the defeat of Napoleon, there was little enthusiasm for compulsion and the Militia Ballot Act was annually suspended from then on. The minor conflicts of the age were conducted by professional troops and the volunteers of the Royal Navy.10 Late Victorian and Edwardian Militarism 9 Ibid., pp.

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