CONSCIE NT IOUS OBJEC TION REMEMBERED

A walk ex ploring the hidden histor yof Haringey ’s First World War Conscientious Objectors

EE FR1 CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION REMEMBERED

This booklet comes to you from a independently rather than with a project, ‘Conscientious Objection guide. Remembered’, run by Haringey Section two outlines the walk, First World War Peace Forum and which takes you from funded by the Heritage Lottery station to Hotel on Fund. It tells the hidden story of the , . Stopping 350 Haringey men who refused to points, numbered on the map, take fight in World War One. It’s a very you past houses where some COs interesting and compelling aspect of lived, chosen to show the range of CO Haringey’s history and we hope the experiences. Other points mark walk described here will attract meeting places and organisations individuals and groups, both young where the anti-war movement found and old. support. The booklet is in three main The walk covers about two miles sections. It begins with background and should take approximately one information about Haringey one and a half hours at a moderate speed. hundred years ago, local anti-war Public transport links are close by for protest and the legal process faced much of the route and they are shown by Conscientious Objectors (COs) on the map in the centre of this booklet. after conscription was introduced in Section three suggests other 1916. You can find out about the locations beyond the scope of the beliefs that motivated them and walk, which offer further aspects of what happened as a result of their Haringey’s First World War history. choices. It will probably be helpful You’ll find a list of resources and to read this before doing the walk, websites at the end of the booklet if especially if you are going you want to find out more.

2 What was Haringey like 100 years ago? One hundred years ago there were three factories and engineering works local authorities covering the area that is clustered around Vale Road, today the Borough of Haringey: Hale, and north of Northumberland , Tottenham and , Park. The Gestetner company and Lebus all in the County of . Railways furniture factory employed hundreds of were key to their popularity as suburbs local people. In 1910 Tottenham of , with extensive housing, constituents re-elected their Liberal MP, much of it recently built, and excellent Percy Alden, who opposed conscription transport links into the City and its jobs. in 1916. Numerous clerks lived in these Wood Green was an urban district boroughs, commuting to offices and council with a growing population businesses, with poorer employees boosted by the development of Noel taking advantage of an early morning Park. Built by the Artizans, Labourers cheap railway ticket. Tottenham had and General Dwellings Company in the developed rapidly to become a crowded, late nineteenth and early twentieth mainly working-class, district. By 1914 century, was one of the first 3 garden suburbs in the world. The and rail links to the City provided houses were designed as good quality employment. Arts and Crafts style affordable housing Of the three authorities, the for working-class people. By 1906 Metropolitan Borough of Hornsey was almost 2000 properties had been let to a more prosperous, more middle-class, mix of people, many newly arrived in and Conservative-voting. Less densely the area. Nearby Barratt’s sweet factory populated than its neighbours, wide areas were covered by parks – notably Finsbury Park and – woodland and playing fields. Parts of Hornsey attracted professionals who worked in the City, though plenty of residents worked at home as tailors, dressmakers and milliners, or as domestic staff employed by affluent families. There were also pockets of extreme poverty around Hornsey Village, like the Campsbourne and

Above: Manor Gate, Finsbury Park. left: Boating on the lake. 4 Hornsey Vale areas which were poorly- sports teams and charities – were run by built, overcrowded slums. the Christian churches, where attendance Cultural and social life was was high. In 1903 over half of Hornsey flourishing. The three boroughs were churchgoers attended Non-Conformist teeming with choral and literary Protestant churches, whose dissenting societies, music halls, organ recitals. tradition inspired some COs. There were the new cinemas, public Germans, Austrians, Russians and libraries, local newspapers, tennis, golf, other European migrants were a well- cricket, racing, Tottenham Hotspur established part of the community. football club, outdoor parades and Tottenham had a Lutheran church rallies, political associations and debate. founded by German bakers in the 19th Political meetings at street corners were century. Even so, after the sinking of the common with speakers well known Lusitania in 1915 rioters attacked locally. Spouters’ Corner in Wood Green German-owned shops: a bakery and was a favourite venue as were Crouch grocer’s on Green Lanes and a End Clock Tower, Finsbury Park and hairdresser’s on St Ann’s Road. A crowd Tottenham High Road. Many activities of 3000 threw stones which smashed a for men, women and children – from shop on West Green Road and there was adult classes and Sunday schools to further violence on Tottenham High Road.

Spouters’ Corner 1906.

5 Anti-War Protest in Haringey and educational activities. Large rallies When Britain declared war on Germany were held, sometimes three on a Sunday, on 4 August 1914, many people believed in nearby Finsbury Park, with noted that war was noble, heroic and exciting. speakers arguing that the war was being But enthusiasm was not universal. fought for business, the Empire and for Thousands protested against the war. wealth, not for working people. Some of the loudest and most active Nationwide, many thousands of protesters were from Haringey which Quakers became COs and the Society of had a history of protest, strikes and Friends provided help and support dissent. Many radical workers’ groups, during and after the war. In Haringey, political parties and socialist Quaker meeting houses, Bradley Hall on organisations had campaigned for Station Road in Wood Green, and labour rights. Non-Conformist churches Tottenham meeting house, became hubs had opposed the 1902 Education Act of anti-war activity. Alfred Butler from with a tax resistance campaign. When Wood Green would have been war threatened many groups were split supported during his four spells in but some turned to campaigning for Prison, as would Albert peace. They protested against Ashpole, Tom Brown and Fred Murfin government decisions that made armed from Tottenham during their conflict more likely. punishments. With their sympathetic members they were places Tottenham of support and aid for local Quaker COs, whether they were Meeting Quakers or not. House. The Quakers also provided ways for men to take up vital work during the war while still holding true to their principles as objectors. Many COs joined the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) which worked both at home and abroad providing medical support for soldiers and civilians alike, saving lives rather than fighting. Political groups in Haringey included The Brotherhood Church in Southgate the Herald League, a Road, nearby in , was hugely movement of readers and supporters of influential in the anti-war movement of the Daily Herald newspaper which, under North London, giving support and the socialist politician George Lansbury, shelter to COs. The Church was an was against the war. Before 1914 the independent Congregational chapel and North London Division of the Herald a centre for socialist and anti-war League had premises on Green Lanes, activity. During the First World War Harringay, where it organised meetings meetings at the Brotherhood Church 6 Above: Members of the Friends Ambulance Unit were frequently Conscription distributing bread attacked after In the early days of the war public in the war zone. opponents were reaction was very mixed. Men deliberately tipped volunteered for the army for different off by the authorities and press to incite reasons, out of patriotism, enthusiasm or confrontation. On one occasion it was set simply to get a decent wage. By 1915 on fire. recruitment numbers were dropping. Other religious groups, Plymouth The army realised that soon there would Brethren, Christadelphians and not be enough soldiers to replace those Jehovah’s Witnesses, were also opposed killed and injured on the battlefield. Top to taking part in the war. They argued ranking officials began to consider that the war went against their beliefs, forcing men into the army to make up the one of the clearest commandments of shortfall. For the first time in British their faith: ‘Thou shalt not kill’. history conscription was seriously Despite their best efforts, Britain went debated in the House of Commons. to war in Europe. Thousands of men Conscription was fiercely opposed from Haringey joined the army in 1914 both in Parliament and on the streets. and 1915, but many members of these Protests, petitions and lectures made the protest groups refused to join up, while true threat of conscription clear with the others, women as well as men, message that it meant much more than supported COs. By 1916 their turning men into soldiers. Forcing men commitment to the anti-war message into uniform meant removing them from would be put to the test. homes and families and giving the 7 Soldiers on Hornsey High Street near the recruiting office and local headquarters of the Middlesex Regiment.

military total control over their lives. were called up. A sixth exempted men in Even though conscription was poor health but the most controversial unpopular, it came into force from March was the ‘Conscience Clause’. This 1916 with the Military Service Act 1916. permitted a man who disagreed with Millions of men around the country killing in war to be exempt from faced a future in uniform. conscription on the grounds of Conscription was passed into law, conscientious objection to taking part in though action in Parliament from anti- military combat. conscription MPs – including The No-Conscription Fellowship, set Tottenham’s Percy Alden – forced up by prominent pacifists in November concessions in . Exemption might 1914, provided help and support to those be granted on any of seven men and their families grounds. Four related to who wanted to claim men employed in work or exemption from training considered to be conscription as COs. in the national interest, Several Tottenham COs such as munitions, were members or butchers and clergy, organisers of a local though not all teachers. Another was for men Disapproval of COs. whose families or ‘Alien Traitors in the businesses would be Parks’ article in The seriously affected if they Weekly Digest , 1917 8 branch. The NCF’s The Tribunal had to be Religious – although in London there printed secretly because of police raids. It were representatives from many included accounts of cruel and illegal religious communities, including treatment of COs in prison. Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, the majority of Haringey’s The Conscience Clause COs were Protestant and Non- The Conscience Clause gave a common Conformist Christians who felt that war basis for all COs having a moral, conflicted with their understanding of religious or political objection to killing the Bible. in war. There were three main reasons for Moral – COs with a moral opposition being a CO: to the war objected on principle to the Political – most political COs were left use of violence as a solution to a wing. Groups of socialists, anarchists problem. This could mean opposition to and some trade unionists were vocal in all forms of killing or just to killing in Haringey’s anti-war movement. war. Some objected solely to Political objectors refused to fight a war conscription, arguing that no system that that they believed was for the benefit of forced men to give up their freedoms the ruling classes but was fought and was worth fighting for. died for by an international Being a CO meant sticking to ‘Brotherhood of Man’. principles in the face of enormous

Hornsey Town Offices in Southwood Lane where local tribunals took place.

9 pressure to join the army. Despite It was a complicated process. Every Haringey’s large anti-war community applicant filled out a form noting their there was none the less much public category – ‘F’ for Conscientious disapproval. It was a difficult and brave Objectors – and the reasons they should choice that saw men sometimes shunned be given exemption. by their families and even attacked, for Tribunals were meant to be fair and believing that war was wrong. balanced in assessing applications. In reality they were often arbitrary and Military Service Tribunals unfair. The men who sat on tribunal Exemption under the Military Service boards were usually aldermen and Act meant applying to a local Tribunal councillors who strongly believed it was where each man’s case would be heard their duty to get every man into the army. and his fate decided. Each of the Joined by a military representative, they Municipal Boroughs now making up usually treated COs harshly and refused Haringey had its own Military Service exemption sometimes on trivial and even Tribunal. The Hornsey Tribunal covered malicious grounds. the west of the Borough and met in the Town Offices on Southwood Lane in At the Tribunals . The Wood Green Tribunal Of over 350 men who applied to tribunals convened at the Town Hall (today’s as COs, most came from Tottenham (162) Woodside House) whilst the Tottenham and Hornsey (141) with the rest (around Tribunals were overseen at Tottenham 50) from Wood Green. A very small Town Hall at Tottenham Green. number of the men who applied for 10 e Documents from the c r a tribunal record of Theodore e P

l Pumphrey, of Vestry Road, i r y Tottenham. Opposite page: C o

t A postcard cartoon mocking s k the conscientous objectors, n a h by Archibald English. t h t i W

absolute exemption were successful. The to the Middlesex Tribunal which met at most common verdict was ‘Exemption the Guildhall, and appealing later to the from Combatant Service Only’, a Central Tribunal which often met at compromise decision that meant Wandsworth Prison, although its official enlistment in the army’s Non-Combatant home was the House of Commons. This Corps in support of front-line soldiers. could be a gruelling and long-drawn-out Less common was being sent to do ‘Work process and one which was likely to end of National Importance’ such as in forced labour in work camps. The horticulture or farming. Least common Home Office work camps were in was work with the Friends Ambulance disused parts of Dartmoor and Unit or Royal Army Medical Corps. Men Wakefield prisons, or Dyce at Aberdeen who accepted these verdicts were known where COs might spend time stone- as ‘Alternativists’ because they accepted breaking. If men refused the Tribunal work as an alternative to being a fighting decision they would be arrested and soldier. handed over to the army. A few simply Men who would have nothing to do disappeared, going on the run. with the war or the military were known Absolutists who continued to resist faced as ‘Absolutists’. These objectors would court martial, imprisonment and not just refuse to fight. They believed that sometimes humiliating and cruel any work that helped another man to punishment. For some this was repeated fight was morally wrong. Tribunals several times. Those who were could allow men to appeal. Locally, this imprisoned or confined to work camps meant submitting a claim for exemption were not released until April 1919. 11 Finsbury Park tram terminal 1907.

The walk The walk from Finsbury Park, Station Place, to the Salisbury Hotel, Green 1 Lanes, Harringay, will take about one and a half hours visiting places where a number of COs associated with the area lived, stayed or worked during the period The walk begins by of conscription between 1916 and 1918. crossing By 1916 the station had become a major Road into the entrance to transport hub of trains with the new Finsbury Park and terminus of the , trams, and follows the path buses for north London with connections bearing to the left beside the main line to and the outer suburbs. railway. Passing the This made Finsbury Park an easily skateboard area and accessible open space for Londoners. the tennis courts, walk on to the T-junction. l Follow the numbers on the map in the centre spread.

12 Finsbury Park site for public meetings.

The southern end of the 2 From the time that the Park was opened in Parkland Walk within 1869 it became a popular place for open air Finsbury Park roughly meetings used on a regular basis by follows the course of the suffragettes, socialists and trade unionists old railway line that ran which attracted people from many walks between Finsbury Park of life. The Society for the Promotion of and Alexandra Palace. Universal and Permanent Peace, more The walk from Finsbury popularly known as the London Peace Park Station to the Society, used the park for their annual Oxford Road entrance to gatherings in the 1880s. the Park passes an area which in 1916 was used Richard, ‘Dick’, or RM Fox was a well-known for public meetings, speaker in Finsbury Park until his arrest in somewhere between the 1916. An engineer, he became a socialist at an tennis courts and the path early age, listening to speakers on Tottenham to the footbridge to High Road. He belonged to the Workers’ Oxford Road. Union and was chair of the Northern Division of the Herald League. His work meant he was not conscripted but nevertheless he applied for unconditional and absolute exemption. He was arrested, court- >>>

13 >>> martialled and like many it up. On another occasion in other COs was still in prison until 1917 a debate in Finsbury Park early 1919. between the North London For more information about each Herald League and Havelock of the COs go to: Wilson, the Seamen’s Union hfwwpf.wordpress.com / leader and a vociferous In January 1916 the North spokesman for the pro-war London Herald League faction in the Trades Union organised a meeting at which Congress, was violently Sylvia Pankhurst was to speak disrupted by 200 merchant but, according to the Daily seamen led by Captain Edward Herald, a paid and violent mob Tupper, Wilson’s henchman in rushed the platform and broke the union.

From the T-junction turn left and walk across the footbridge, passing the start of Parkland Walk proper on your right, into Oxford Road and pause at the crossroads with Florence Road.

Leaflets picked up from the mud at a meeting in Finsbury Park, 1917.

14 3 A young CO lived at 7 Oxford Road. Turn right into Florence Frederick Ernest Webster, 18 years of Road and walk to Upper age, a newspaper assistant, applied to Tollington Park. Cross Hornsey Tribunal for absolute the road, turn right and exemption on religious grounds, with a then turn left into letter of support from his pastor, Mr Lancaster Road. Continue walking along Saxby of 596 Green Lanes, Harringay. Lancaster Road pausing The Tribunal refused his application at Cornwall Road. sayin g ‘there were not sufficient grounds for exemption’. He would have been sent to Barracks and must have refused orders as he was in prison in August 1916. 4

In Cornwall Road two COs lived who received very different treatment.

Hector William Kingston, a clerk aged 25, married, living at 25 Cornwall Road, applied for exemption to Hornsey Tribunal four times in 1916 on two grounds: conscience and hardship. The Tribunal refused all his applications, and he appealed to the Middlesex Appeal Tribunal which rejected his appeal. He was forcibly enlisted, joining a Cycling Battalion, and was killed in action in 1918.

15

5

Walk on along Lancaster Road and turn right into Connaught Road and stop outside number 16.

In Connaught Road there were seven men at three addresses, the greatest number of COs on any street in Haringey.

Henry Horace Peacock, a Post Office letter sorter, married, aged 37, living at 9 Cornwall Road (above), applied for exemption to Hornsey Tribunal in 1916 on grounds of conscience as a Congregationalist. He was only granted exemption from combatant service. The Middlesex Appeal Tribunal Isaac Goss. extended his exemption, so that he could remain with the Post Office for six months, until 16 Connaught Road was home to Isaac March 1917. Dissatisfied, he Goss, son of Jewish refugees from the went absent and was arrested in Russian Pale of Settlement, 36 years of age, April and sent to Mill Hill married with four children and owner of a Barracks Non-Combatant Corps tailoring business. The Hornsey Tribunal Depot, where he joined the refused him an absolute exemption in 1916, Guardroom Branch of the No- giving him exemption from combatant Conscription Fellowship. He was service to do work of national importance. court-martialled and sentenced He refused to accept this conditional to 56 days hard labour in exemption but the Middlesex Appeal Wormwood Scrubs. The Central Tribunal only confirmed Hornsey’s decision Tribunal eventually classified and he was duly arrested for absenteeism him as a CO and sent him to the and taken to Mill Hill Barracks. He must work camp on Dartmoor. have convinced the military authorities >>>

18 >>> that his work was of national importance as he seems to have avoided enlistment in the Non-Combatant Corps and appears to have returned to civilian life. Perhaps being the Secretary of the London County Council School Care Committee and running a Sunday school, a Boys’ Club and summer camps was enough to make the authorities wary of his influence. He was also a leading member of the No-Conscription Fellowship and a ‘thorn in the side’ of Hornsey Tribunal.

The five Walker brothers, Barracks for enlistment clerks and commercial into the Non-Combatant artists, all single, aged Corps. All five were at between 33 and 21, lived one time or another at 17 Connaught Road, arrested, court- the largest family group martialled, or given of COs in Haringey. All prison sentences with five young men refused to hard labour. Isaac Goss answer any call-up raised the brutal papers, respond to any treatment of the brothers military orders or undress as an example of the 17 Connaught, home for medicals when they wider mistreatment of of the Walker family. were taken to Mill Hill all COs.

Joseph Goss, younger brother of Isaac, lived at 31 Connaught Road. At 25, he was unmarried, a tailor’s cutter and manager. Hornsey Tribunal refused him absolute exemption on 23 March 1916, offering exemption from combatant service, which he refused. He was arrested for absenteeism in October and taken to Mill Hill. Joseph refused military orders and was given six months hard labour to be served in Wormwood Scrubs. Isaac’s brother Joseph who lived at number 31.

19 Look left down Stapleton Military Service Act that Hall Road towards where a allowed tribunals to re- 6 CO lived who was to have examine men previously declared medically unfit. His Walk on to the end post-war experience of of Connaught Road, prison. claim for absolute exemption past the blocks of was turned down by the flats that were part Albert Samuel Inkpin lived at Chairman who determined of the extensive 16 Stapleton Hall Road. He that his motivation was post-WW2 bomb was 32, married, and secretary political, and so could not be damage of the British Socialist Party. conscientious. The outcome of reconstruction of He was exempted from this is unknown. After the Stroud Green, to military service in July 1916 war he became Secretary of Oakfield Road. Turn on medical grounds. A year the Communist Party of Great left at this junction later he appeared again before Britain and was imprisoned to reach Stapleton at least twice for political Hall Road. Hornsey Tribunal under the provisions of the second reasons.

Turn right from Oakfield Road into Stapleton Hall Road and continue up the hill to Quernmore Road, a cul-de- sac beside the fine red brick Stroud Green and Harringay Library, leading to Harringay Railway Station.

7 The house opposite the library was home to a CO.

Andrew James Melhuish, aged 34 and single, was a tool and hardware merchant living at 157 Stapleton Hall Road. He applied to Hornsey Tribunal in March 1916 and was granted exemption from combatant service, conditional on joining the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU). He served in with the FAU from April 1916 until November 1918.

20 Walk over the railway bridge at the end of the cul- de-sac into Railway Approach and cross Wightman Road, turning right at the Shelton Hotel.

This section of Wightman Road the Central Tribunal exempted him used to be a thriving shopping 8 to the Home Office Scheme. He centre of 41 shops when it was refused and was sentenced to hard built in the late 1880s. To the right at labour in Wormwood Scrubs and then in 20 Wightman Road, Herbert Bishop’s Wandsworth Prison between late 1917 dairy was the address of a young CO and June 1919. In January 1919 he went whose family lived at 22 . on hunger strike and was released due to illness under the 1913 so-called Cat and Walter Charles Hohnrodt was 18 and a Mouse Act (which had been used against research assistant at the Royal Veterinary hunger-striking suffragettes). Walter was College. His German father was amongst re-arrested and re-imprisoned until June 3,00 0‘enemy aliens’ interned at 1919. Alexandra Palace. Walter’s applications Above: An extract from one of Walter and appeals for absolute exemption were Hohnrodt’s handwritten letters, from the all turned down until October 1917, when Peace Pledge Union archives.

Right: Andrew Melhuish. Left: His Friends Ambulance Unit service card.

21 10 Grand Parade, Green Lanes, which can be seen from the bottom of Umfreville Road, was one of the finest late Victorian shopping parades in North London Walk down Atterbury when it opened in 1900. Across Green Road and turn left Lanes, a flat above a florist’s shop, 75b into Woollaston Road and then right Grand Parade, was the address of three to walk down brothers, two of whom were activists in Umfreville Road the North London Herald League. towards Green Lanes. Cecil Whitby Howard was a grocer’s manager aged 28, Percy Wilberforce Howard an accounts clerk aged 26, and Leonard S Howard a shop assistant aged 22. All lived at 75b. Cecil was arrested as an 9 absentee, court-martialled at Mill Hill The border between Hornsey Barracks and sentenced to 112 days hard and Tottenham ran between labour in Wormwood Scrubs before the houses 94 and 96 Umfreville Central Tribunal granted an exemption Road. conditional on joining the Home Office Scheme, first in Wakefield Prison and then 70 Umfreville Road was home to at Dartmoor. Percy and Leonard were at Charles Robert Watson, aged 26, different times secretaries of the Northern single and a commercial Division of the Herald League, organising traveller. He is one of those COs meetings at Liberty Hall, the Herald about whom we know very little League’s premises up at 318 Green Lanes, at indeed. Though he is listed as a nearby Fairfax Hall and at the Allison Hall, CO on the Pearce Register of further north up Green Lanes. They British Conscientious Objectors continued their activities and though both 1914-1918, we have no record of were absolutists, neither seems to have been why he became a CO, his detained by the authorities for any great tribunal appearances or of what length of time. happened to him after that. Edward Knight lodged at 75b. Aged 26 and a bookseller’s stockkeeper’s assistant, he asked for, but was refused, exemption on political grounds. His appeal was refused and he was subsequently court-martialled four times, serving consecutive prison sentences in Wandsworth Prison.

22 Cross Green Lanes and walk into the turning by Barclays Bank, Stanhope Gardens. Take the first turning on the right, Portland Gardens.

At the far end of Portland Gardens is the Kurdish Community Centre. In 1916 this was Fairfax Hall, a one-time dancing school, where Sylvia Pankhurst was the main speaker 11 Below: Daily Herald in 1916 at a ‘Grand Concert and advertisement Dance’, one amongst many for meeting in events organised there by the Fairfax Hall. North London Herald League.

Another CO had an address 39 Stanhope Gardens was home to 12 next door in the top flat above Alexander Simpson Coursier, a clerk who, a greengrocer’s shop. in 1909, when he was 18, joined the Army Territorials on a four-year enlistment as a 76c Grand Parade, Green Lanes, driver. His voluntary enlistment did not last was the address of Arthur Francis the full four years and he was discharged in Simmons, aged 30 , a school March 1911. There is no record of Alexander attendance officer. He is another applying for exemption from military service man on the Pearce Register of COs in 1916, but he was court-martialled at Mill about whom next to nothing is Hill barracks on 16 April 1916 and sentenced known. He apparently served in to 112 days hard labour, served in the Non-Combatant Corps, so he Wormwood Scrubs. He appeared before the must have been given an Central Tribunal on 16 and 23 June 1917, exemption from combatant service was classified as a CO and on 12 July he was which he was prepared to accept. sent to Dartmoor Work Centre.

23 Walk down Stanhope Gardens to the second turning on the left, Grafton Gardens. Walk along Grafton Gardens and turn left into Rutland Gardens and then take the first right along Devon Gardens. Turn right into Roseberry Gardens and then take the first left, Sussex Gardens, to reach Chesterfield Gardens.

Two COs lived in Chesterfield Gardens . 13 14 33 Chesterfield Gardens (above) was home to Harry Phipps, a printer’s Another family group of compositor, aged 26 and married, who brothers, all COs, lived in claimed exemption on conscientious Stanhope Gardens. grounds in July 1916. Tottenham Tribunal gave him time to find work of The three Abbott brothers, national importance, which he did. But working in sales and stores, before he could return to the Tribunal his Percy Richard, 28, Harvey, 27, application was refused. Appeals were and William Thomas, 22, lived dismissed and he refused to join the at 58 Stanhope Gardens Non-Combatant Corps , ending up in (above). Percy and Harvey Wormwood Scrubs prison. His rough applied for exemption to treatment meant he was sent to Barnet Tottenham Tribunal. This was War Hospital, and then Aylesbury granted and they agreed to Hospital before being discharged as join the Non-Combatant unfit. He died in 1919 leaving a wife and Corps. Percy was sent to daughter. France. However in July Harvey was found guilty of Percy Bertram Harrow, 29 and married, misconduct in the field and 15 was a piano finisher and polisher who given seven days Field lived at 98 Chesterfield Gardens. He Punishment No. 2. This meant applied for exemption on grounds of wearing fetters and handcuffs conscience for moral reasons. Tottenham even while marching with his Tribunal were not satisfied that he was a unit and also hard labour and sincere conscientious objector and loss of pay. William’s dismissed the claim. There is no application was heard by information about Percy to be found Brighton Tribunal which between August 1916 and 1918 which granted him exemption from may mean he accepted the fact that he was combatant service after which conscripted or perhaps he went on the run. he also joined the Non- Combatant Corps.

24 8a Grand Parade was the address of Edward Dauben, married, a 33-year-old bus driver. He was 16 born Emil Daubenspeck, of German parentage, and From Chesterfield was court-martialled in December 1916, and given 112 Gardens walk back days hard labour in Wormwood Scrubs. In January 1917 to Green Lanes and the Central Tribunal offered him a place on the Home turn right. Walk Office Scheme which he refused and he was sent to join along Green Lanes to pass the address the Non-Combatant Corps . Three days later he was of another CO. sentenced to two years hard labour and transferred to Wandsworth Prison, staying in prison until April 1919.

Continue to walk until you 17 reach Salisbury Corner and the Salisbury Hotel.

The Salisbury Hotel, now a Grade II* listed building, was opened in 1899, and forms the starting point of Grand Parade. The area outside the Hotel was a popular outdoor This is the end of meeting place used by the North the walk and the London Herald League, which proposed site for organised an anti-war protest a Conscientious there on 5 August 1914. Objectors plaque.

25 Tottenham Town Hall 1905.

Other notable places

There are places off the map provided which you may like to visit. Some buildings are still there, though much changed. Others have been demolished and this is indicated with a ‡. THE THREE TOWN HALLS and TRIBUNAL LOCATIONS

The majority of Haringey COs appeared built in . The original before a Military Service Tribunal which building was demolished and housing met in one of the three Town Halls. was built on the site in the 1960s. It is worth noting that the offices stood in ‡ HORNSEY Town Hall at the time was the wealthy western-most part of the the former Hornsey Local Board Offices old borough and was probably in Southwood Lane, Highgate, built by unfamiliar territory for the COs from the Parish of Hornsey in 1867. The further east. Offices remained in use until 1934 Postcode: N6 5TA. Transport: Highgate when the new Hornsey Town Hall was underground, buses. 26 WOOD GREEN men appeared at the Military Service Tribunal held at Wood Green Town Hall (pictured right). Earlham Grove House and surrounding land had been bought by the Local Board in 1893 becoming Wood Green Town Hall in 1894. The grounds are known as Woodside Park. Postcode: N22 8YX. Transport: Wood Green underground and buses

TOTTENHAM men appeared at the Tribunal held in the very grand Town Hall on Tottenham Green. It was built in OTHER PLACES 1905 and is a Grade ll listed building today. It was sold off to Newlon Housing 103 CROUCH HILL Association in 2011, which has been This was the home of the Reverend responsible for the refurbishment and Richard Roberts and his family when he restoration of the building now used by was minister at the Holly Park voluntary services and as an Presbyterian church further down entertainment centre. Crouch Hill. (The church closed in 1975 Postcode: N15 4RY. Transport: Seven Sisters and was demolished.) On the outbreak of underground, buses war Roberts was shocked to see that

Crouch Hill – with distant spire of Presbyterian Church c. 1904.

27 eight young German businessmen in his Above, left to right: Presbyterian Church, congregation had disappeared, and he Holly Park (demolished), Crouch Hill; 103, the home of Richard Roberts, Minister of realised that they might soon be fighting the Presbyterian Church; and 86 Crouch against fellow church members. Roberts Hill, home for Belgian refugees. chaired the founding conference of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and resigned from Holly Park church in 1915 to become the first secretary of this new ALEXANDRA PALACE pacifist society. To the north of the streets included in the Roberts’ controversial views no doubt walk is the iconic Alexandra Palace. encouraged local COs, including Arthur During the First World War it was first Denny, who had been secretary of the used as a camp for Belgian Refugees who Young People’s Fellowship, and Sydney were then dispersed to various parts of Crisfield, secretary of the Young Men’s the country. From 1915 it became a camp Debating Society, at the church. We know in which 3000 Germans, Austrians and that Isaac Goss of Connaught Road had a Hungarians were interned until 1919 as book of essays by leading pacifist writers ‘enemy aliens’. Many spoke no German including Roberts. and had been born in England. Some Almost opposite 103, number 86 were living in Hornsey, Tottenham and Crouch Hill was turned into a home for Wood Green before the War: musicians, Belgian refugee families who had fled businessmen and ship-owners, or their homeland after the German artisans such as bakers. They included invasion at the start of the war. Members Jewish refugees who had come to Britain of the Presbyterian congregation funded in the 1890s from Russia and Eastern number 86 and another house at 4 The Europe. Some were ruined financially by Grove from 1914 until 1916 when the War internment and all suffered from the Refugees’ Committee took charge. experience. Postcode: N8 9RD. Transport: W7 bus Postcode: N22 7AY.Transport: W3 bus 28 100 HORNSEY HIGH STREET This shop premises was used as the meeting place for the Hornsey Branch of the Herald League and must have been a familiar venue for many of the local political COs. Its secretary from at least July 1913 was Kate Offley, the older sister of three brothers who all went to Hornsey Tribunal for exemption as COs. William and Amyas became so German internees at Alexandra Palace demoralised by the bullying they on the poultry farm (top) and in the toy- received at the hands of the Tribunal that making workshop. they reluctantly joined up. They were both killed in France. The third, Arthur, George Kenner, an interned German, was an absolutist who spent most of the produced a wonderful set of war in prison, went on hunger strike and watercolours of daily life in the camp. was force-fed. Hornsey Historical Society’s Archive Kate was also secretary of Hornsey (hornseyhistorical.org ) holds copies of a British Socialist Party which was another number of his pictures and an account user of the premises. She must have from George himself. known many local men who refused to 29 The fountain opposite 100 Hornsey High Street was another outdoor meeting place.

fight. In 1921 she married Rowland Pratt, HARINGEY’S COS another Hornsey CO who lived at 75 You will find all Haringey’s 350 COs Claremont Road, Highgate, and was a listed on the HFWWPF website with prominent member of the anti-war their addresses, occupations and, so far movement. as it is possible to know, the details of Postcode: N8 7HT. Transport: 144 bus. their pre-war, wartime and post-war biographies. Visit hfwwpf.wordpress.com BROOK STREET CHAPEL There were many supportive churches Brook Street and chapels, often small assemblies, Chapel today. particularly in Tottenham and largely Non-Conformist, which produced and supported COs. See for example Brook Street Chapel in Tottenham High Road set up by dissident Quakers and later adhering to the Brethren. Tottenham COs William George Couchman and Ernest Cuthbert attended and helped there. Postcode: N17 9JF. Transport: Bruce Grove Overground and buses. 30 Books ‘Don’t be a soldier!’ The radical anti- We Will Not Fight: the untold war movement in north London stories of World War One’s 1914-1918 Conscientious Objectors by Ken Weller by Will Ellsworth-Jones Search online at: libcom.org 2008, London: Aurum Press For more publications go to hfwwpf.wordpress.com/select-bibliography/ Websites Search online at: Conscientious Objectors’ Museum: Search at: Register 1914-1918 haringey.gov.uk Everyday Lives in War: Conscientious Objection Remembered: everydaylivesinwar.herts.ac.uk conscientiousobjectionremembered. Hornsey Historical Society: wordpress.com hornseyhistorical.org.uk Conscientious Objectors’ Register 1914- Peace Pledge Union: 1918. (The Pearce Register): menwhosaidno.org Acknowledgements Picture credits Haringey First World War Peace Pages 3, 4 (bottom), 6, 19 (top), 26, 27 (top), 29 – Bruce Forum is most grateful for all the Castle Museum (Haringey Archive and Museum help it has received in researching Service) and producing this booklet. 4 (top), 5, 9, 12, 25, 27 (bottom), 28 (far left) – Hornsey Historical Society Some text on pages 6-11 comes 7, 20, 21 (portrait) and front cover (right) – from the Peace Pledge Union’s © Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain Heritage Lottery funded exhibition 8 and front cover (left) – courtesy of Peter Barber No More War: Haringey’s First World 10 – courtesy of Cyril Pearce War Conscientious Objectors (2015) 11 – National Archives ref. MH47/67/5 (Pumphrey Map: Leon Boothman – case no M864) boothmandesign.com 13, 15, 18 (left), 19 (centre) 23, 24, 28 (centre & right), 30 (bottom) and back cover (bottom) – Valerie Flessati Design & layout: 14 and back cover (centre) – reproduced by kind And y Smit h+Denis eBell permission of Senate House Library inf o@ smithplusbell .com 18, 19, and front cover portraits – courtesy of Philippa Goss CONSCIENTIOUS 21 (top) – Peace Pledge Union 23 (right) – © Mirrorpix and with thanks to OBJECTION The British Newspaper Archive REMEMBERED (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk ) Devised and written by Jennifer Bell, 30 (top) & back cover (top) – Memories Picture Joanna Bornat, Valerie Flessati, Library, John Hinshelwood and Al Johnson © 2018 It has not been possible to trace copyright for all images. Haringey First World War Peace Forum Please inform the publishers of omissions and credit will be 26 Hawthorn Road, London N8 7NA given in any reprint.

31 CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION REMEMBERED

A walk ex ploring the hidden history of Haringey ’s First World War Conscientious Objectors This booklet tells the hidden story of some of the 350 Haringey ‘Conscientious Objectors’ (COs) who refused to fight in World War One. It takes us back to Haringey a hundred years ago, to the local anti- war protests and the legal battles faced by COs after conscription was introduced in 1916. The walk (map in centre pages) from to the Salisbury on Green Lanes, Harringay, captures the range of CO experiences, taking in their homes, and meeting places where the anti-war movement found support. Other locations in the borough have been chosen to further illuminate this forgotten aspect of Haringey’s First World War history. EE FR Haringey First World War Peace Forum www.conscientiousobjectionremembered.wordpress.com