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Reluctant Absolutist: Malcolm Sparkes' Conscientious Objections to World War I Bert Den Boggende [email protected]

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Reluctant Absolutist: Malcolm Sparkes' Conscientious Objections to World War I Bert Den Boggende Bertdenb@Yahoo.Com Quaker Studies Volume 10 | Issue 1 Article 5 2006 Reluctant Absolutist: Malcolm Sparkes' Conscientious Objections to World War I Bert den Boggende [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/quakerstudies Part of the Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, and the History of Christianity Commons Recommended Citation den Boggende, Bert (2006) "Reluctant Absolutist: Malcolm Sparkes' Conscientious Objections to World War I," Quaker Studies: Vol. 10: Iss. 1, Article 5. Available at: http://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/quakerstudies/vol10/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ George Fox University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Quaker Studies by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ George Fox University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 66 QUAKER STUDIES QUAKER STUDIES 10/1 (2005) [67-86] ISSN 1363-013X Cay, J., An Abri�qement ofthe Publick Statutes in Force and Use from Magna Carta to Geo�<,?e II, London: Gosling, 1739. Foulds, E., George Fox m1d the Va liant Sixty, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1975. Fox, G., A Collection of Many Select and Christian Epistles, London: T. Sowle, 1698. -, TheJournal of Geo�qe Fox, ed. Nickalls, J.L.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952. -, Works <?fGeo�'Se Fox , State College, PA: New Foundation Publications, 1990. Fox, G., Stubbs,J., and Furley, B., A Battle-doorfo r Teachers and Professors, York: Scolar Press, 1968. Harbury, E., Laws of England, 46 vols.; London: Butterworth, 1907-17. Horle, C., Quakers and the Et�rtlish Legal System, 1660--1688, Philadelphia: University ofPenn­ sylvania Press, 1988. RELUCTANT ABSOLUTIST: Mcdowell, P., 71te Women ofGrub Street, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. MALCOLM SPARKES' CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTIONS Moore, R., 71te Light in their Consciences: Early Quakers irt Britain, 1646-1666, University Park, PA: I Penn State University Press, 2000. TO WORLD WAR Nayler,J., 'The Lamb's War', in Barbour, H., and Roberts, A., (eds), Early Quaker Writings, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973, pp. 102-16. Bert den Boggende Raistrick, A., Quakers in Science and Industry, Newton Abbot: Latimer Trend, 1968. Penney, N. (ed.), The First Publishers of the Truth, Philadelphia and New York: Headley Bros, 1907. Brooks, Alberta, Canada Scobell, H., Collection ofActs and Ordinances, London: Hills & Field, 1658. Sewel, W., History ofthe Rise, Increase, and Pro,gress of the Christian People Called Quakers, 2 vols.; London: Phillips, 1795. ABSTRACT Smith,J., A Descriptive Catalogue of Friends' Books, Vol. II, New York: Krauss Reprint Co., 1970 (1867). The existing secondary literature has treated the appearance of World War I conscientious Spurrier, W.W., 'The Persecution of the Quakers in England, 1650-1714', unpublished PhD objectors (COs) befo re the tribunals as rather straightfo rward and uncomplicated. As the case of thesis, Chapel Hill, University ofNorth Carolina, 1976. Malcolm Sparkes indicates, the process was much less straightfo rward and much more complex. Taylor, E.E., The Va liant Sixty, York: Sessions, 1988. The arduous process also shows that the power of the local tribunals was enlarged and that of the Ward, J.V., Some Rural Quakers, York: Sessions, 1991. Pelham Committee reduced, due to the wrong decision - as the government acknowledged- by Whiting, J., A Catalogue of Friends Books, London: J. Sowle, 1708. the local tribunal at Slough. The decision resulted in Sparkes becoming a reluctant or alternativist absolutist, a nomenclature hitherto ignored in the literature. Sparkes' case also suggests that at least some Quaker and other nonconfom1ist COs should be viewed through the prism of the Fellowship ofReconciliation rather than through the prism of the No-Conscription Fellowship or the Friends AUTHOR DETAILS Service Committee. Raymond Ayoub is Professor Emeritus of mathematics fromPenn State. He has been a convinced Friend for over 50 years, having married into a Quaker family. He and KEYWORDS his wife have spent their post-retirement years teaching in the Middle East. His Conscientious Objector, conscription, Quaker, Malcolm Sparkes, Fellowship of Reconciliation, interest in Quaker history stems from a natural curiosity, but more importantly from integrated pacifism, reluctant absolutist a conviction that Friends of the seventeenth century have an important message for contemporary Quakers and others, even across three and a half centuries. Mter the battle of Waterloo, won with militia-based forces, Britain, in contrast to continental Europe, regularly suspended the annual Military Ballot Act - in fact, Mailing address: abolished it in 1860 - and had no military conscription during the nineteenth cen­ Raymond Ayoub, Dept. of Mathematics, University Park, PA. 16802, USA. E-mail: tury, relying on professional soldiers and voluntary recruitment.1 Not until after the [email protected] Boer War did compulsory military service become a topic in the political arena, vigorously pursued by the National Service League. Liberal sentiment and trade unionist fear of industrial conscription, however, impeded implementation. Enthu­ siastic enlistment at the outbreak ofW orldWar I also muted the call for conscription momentarily. However, the call for conscription became more strident when the conscriptionists gained political influence in Prime Minister Asquith's May 19 15 coalition cabinet, the number of volunteers declined, the casualties enormously 68 QUAKER STUDIES DEN BOGGENDE RELUCTANT ABSOLUTIST 69 increased, and the size of the army was enlarged. Even so, Asquith did not introduce Born on 14 October 1881 in Rochdale, Lancashire, Malcolm Sparkes was the a military service bill to parliament until 5January 19 16. The delay can be explained eldest son of yarn salesman Joseph John Sparkes and Mary Sophia Pollard, whose by the fa ct that Asquith needed time to prevent the break-up of his cabinet, ensure fa ther had been one of the contributors to A Reasonable Faith of 1884, a book that both popular and parliamentary support, and promise organised labour that industrial contributed to the downfall of the dominant Quaker evangelicalism and the rise of conscription would not be included.2 theological modernism. 5 Mter attending Religious Society of Friends schools at After Asquith's 19 15 political manoeuvring, the passage of the Military Service Ackworth and Bootham, he entered in 1898 H.C. Cleaver's architectural wood Act through parliament was quick, although the amendment by Quaker MPs workers' firm in London, attaining the position of managing director, a position he Edmund Harvey and Arnold Rowntree, allowing fo r exemption on grounds of relinquished in the summer of 19 16, when it conflictedwith his view of pacifism. In conscientious objection, caused considerable debate, especially concerning the 1910 he married ElizabethJackson (1882-1969) of Kendal, Westmorland, settling at inclusion of non-religious objection. Harvey and Rowntree intended to exempt Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire. They became the parents of two daughters and COs fromall military service, but the adopted amendment was clumsily worded in two sons. Befo re the war he was involved in some Quaker peace activities atJ ordans, the bill, stating that, 'Any certificate of exemption may be absolute, conditional, or the burial place of renowned early Quaker William Penn, an involvement he temporaty, as the Military Service tribunal think best suited to the case, and in the mentioned at his tribunal trials. However, there is no evidence of the integration of case of an application on conscientious grounds may take the fo rm of an exemption pacifism and social issues that became so prominent at his trials. fr om combatant duty only'. 3 Although the act was fu rther amended and clarified, the As manager Sparkes became involved in labour disputes in the building industry, ambiguity remained. Conscientious objectors and tribunal members would interpret notably those of the tempestuous first half of 19 14.6 He achieved only limited success the wording differently,the fo rmer emphasising the first part of the amendment, the in keeping his company out of the industrial strife and as a result came to regard the latter the second part. Furthermore, some COs (the absolutists) thought that their existing adversarial labour-management system as fu ndamentally flawed. For the rest credo gave them the right to be exempted fromall military or non-military service, of his life he tried to find a different approach to labour-management relations.7 while other COs (the alternativists) were willing to do some other kind of service. While during the strife he had been able to hone his practical skills as negotiator, he When inJuly 19 16, at the beginning of the Somme offensive, Malcolm Sparkes missed as yet the ideological underpinnings he fe lt he needed. Two conferences, at appeared before his local tribunal asking fo r a certificate of exemption, the Military Llandudno and Cambridge, were crucial to his theoretical thinking, helping him in Service Act had been in place fo r several months. Like thousands of others, he his development towards a new type of pacifism: integrated pacifism. 8 thought he had a right to absolute exemption fr om all military service. He based his Months before the war broke out a number of Quaker organisations had decided arguments on two intimately related grounds: his pacifism and his work. to hold a September conference in Llandudno, Wales. A memorandum circulating
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