The Imperial War Museum’s Lives of the First World War website contains records of nearly eight million individuals, of whom 16,502 are listed as conscientious objectors. Twenty-three of those conscientious objectors are listed as from Preston.
The information is based on the Pearce Register of British First World War Conscientious Objectors. That register is no longer on line, which is unfortunate since it reportedly contains information on some 18,000 conscientious objectors, 1,500 more than on the website. This means it is likely some Preston men are missing from the website (see the discussion of Michael Hughes’ article below).
The website provides some or all of the following information about those individuals: year of birth; address; political affiliations; religion; motivation and reason for their objection; and details of their various tribunal and court martial decisions and verdicts.
Preston conscientious objector Harry Wentworth’s page from the Imperial War Museum’s Lives of the First World War website. Sadly, the source links provide no information.
In one case, that of Joseph ‘Joe’ Garstang, we have a great deal more information thanks to research by his great-niece Anne Berry.
The birth years are given for sixteen of the Preston men. The oldest was Sidney Johnstone, a Quaker, who was employed as a draper and lived in Ribbleton Lane. He would have been aged 39 or 40 when conscription was introduced in 1916 and applied to men between the ages of 18 and 41 (the upper limit was raised to 50 in 1918, with the provision of a further increase to 56 if needed).
The youngest was William Bibby, another Quaker, who was born in 1900. He was called up in 1918 when he turned eighteen. William was a railway goods clerk living in Linton Street.
The addresses of the men show that nearly all were living in the working-class districts of Preston. Their occupations put them firmly among the working class:
Apprentice painter, boot repairer and shoe repairer, building trade, carriage painter, clogger (2), commercial traveller, cotton spinner, cotton weaver, draper, labourer, market gardener, railway goods clerk, sewing machine salesman, tailor, traveller and pork butcher, and weaver.
Religion would seem to have been a primary motive for several of the men: Six Quakers and one each from Baptist, Christadelphian, Plymouth Brethren, Spiritualist. The religion of one man was given as non-sectarian and another was listed as non-sectarian. There were two atheists. No information was given for the other nine men.
Political affiliation was given as a possible motivation for three men: Joe Garstang and Harry Ainsworth were members of the Preston branch of the Independent Labour Party. Joe was also a member of the No-Conscription Fellowship, as was Walter Holden, of Goldfinch Street, who was secretary of the Preston branch.
Eight of the men were jailed. Joe Garstang was one of the two Preston men who went on hunger strike while imprisoned. He was force fed. The other hunger striker was Frederick Parr of Moss Croft, Lostock Hall.
Conscientious objectors, if deemed genuine, were offered the choice of accepting non-combatant duties, usually, for the Preston men, at an army training camp, or they could be assigned to war work at, for example, Leyland Motors. Quakers could serve in the Friends Ambulance Service and two, possibly three, of the Preston Quakers accepted this alternative. Failure to accept the offered alternatives resulted in imprisonment.
A Patchwork of Dissent
Michael Hughes wrote an article for the Local Historian in 2017 titled ‘A patchwork of dissent: conscientious objectors in Lancashire during the First World War’ that includes a great deal about Preston’s conscientious objectors. [1]
‘The development of the anti-war movement after 1914 was shaped in part by a radical ideology that saw the conflict as a war which pitted worker against worker. A significant number of COs were members of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) whose leaders generally – although not invariably – opposed the war. The other organisations that became most significant in campaigning both for the rights of individual conscience and for greater popular control over foreign policy – the No-Conscription Fellowship (NCF) and the Union of Democratic Control (UDC) – attracted many members of the ILP including a large number of women who were active in the female suffrage movement.’
Hughes had access to the full Pearce database, which is no longer available on line. It appears to have information on a small number of Preston conscientious objectors who do not appear on the Lives of the First World War website. For example, he lists three Plymouth Brethren from Preston, whereas only one is named on the website.
The other motivation discussed by Hughes was religious belief. He suggests it is difficult to separate political from religious motivation, given that much political radicalism arose Nonconformists. With regard to Preston, he comments:
‘The town also had a comparatively small Nonconformist population – perhaps of significance given that much opposition to the war came from those of a Nonconformist background (although it also had a large Irish Catholic population that in general produced a lower rate of recruits than other parts of the population).’
Hughes found that in Preston the number of conscientious objectors as a proportion of all men of military age in the town was considerably lower than for several other Lancashire towns: Preston had one CO for every 1,089 men, whereas in Lancaster there was one for every 662. In Nelson the ratio was one CO for every 110 men of military age.
He concluded that:
‘The comparatively small number of COs from Preston – at least relative to the town’s population – included a large number of Quakers along with at least three Plymouth Brethren, and a number of other men who cited their opposition to war on some kind of religious grounds (‘spiritualist’ etc). Few of them – at least to judge from press reports and other material – held strong political views.’
