Bert Brocklesby, a school teacher from Doncaster, applied for exemption from military service early in 1916 on religious grounds. Bert went before his local and appeal Tribunals in February and April 1916, and was given exemption from Combatant Service Only by both. To Bert, this was an unacceptable decision – joining the Army, even in a Non-Combatant role meant going against his deeply held conscientious belief that war in all forms was a crime.
He was arrested as an absentee after refusing to obey the order to report to his nearby barracks to be enlisted into the Non Combatant Corps. Bert refused to compromise his principles in any way, and did not even take the step of signing his Army papers – denying the military authorities even this rudimentary control over his life.
For making this stand, and for disobeying other orders, Bert was Court Martialled and would soon become one of a group of Absolutists (known as the ‘Richmond 16’) sent to France from Richmond Castle, Yorkshire, as military prisoners. It seems that Bert managed to drop a cleverly edited field service postcard out of the train while being transferred to France for further punishment. This postcard alerted Bert’s local MP (who sympathised with the principles behind Bert’s objection to military service) that men were being transferred to the combat zone, where, considered to be on active service, they could be sentenced to death for disobeying orders.
Bert would find this out on arrival at Henriville Camp, Northern France.
On June 24th 1916, Bert’s sentence was read out in front of the Non-Combatant Corps Battalion to which the Army believed he belonged:
“The accused were tried by Field General Court-martial on the 13th day of June, had been found guilty and sentenced to death. The sentences had been confirmed by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig……………. and commuted to ten years’ penal servitude”
Bert was sent to Dyce Camp to quarry stone with primitive tools in atrocious conditions. Soon afterwards the camp was closed after the neglect of the men working there had resulted in the death of Walter Roberts.
Bert spent the rest of the war in prison, finally being released in 1919. He joined the Friends War Victims Relief service soon after his release, determined to not just protest against war, but provide aid and support to some of its victims.
Based on an article by the Peace Pledge Union.
Field service postcard, showing how Bert may have managed to alert the civilian authorities to the Richmond 16’s plight
Explore more memories from the ribbon
-
2nd Lt. Hadow
Gerald Francis Hadow was born in Scarborough in 1895, the son of Colonel A de S Hadow of the XIX Regiment of Foot (the Green Howards). He was commisioned as a Second Lieutenant on 15th August 1914 and promoted to Lieutenant in March 1915. His first actions were at the battles of neuve Chapelle and Festubert. His death at Givenchy on 15th June 1915 was recorded at the time: “He had reached the German barbed wire and finding he was practically alone, returned to his own trenches, which he reached untouched. Here he found his captain killed and all the other officers dead or wounded. His company went into action 180 strong and had 142 casualties. he returned to report to the C.O. and on the way, was struck on the head by a piece of shell. A captain under whom he served wrote; ‘I feel I have lost a young friend whom I had got to know and tested in perhaps the most severe time – war time – and he never failed. He was such a gallant little fellow and quite ready to die for the good cause.’”
-
Harold Binks
Harold was born in 1894 in Well, a small hamlet to the east of Masham in North Yorkshire. He was the eldest of five children of Thomas and Elizabeth Binks. Thomas had also been born in Well, whereas Elizabeth was from Thornton Watlass near Bedale. Thomas was employed as a gamekeeper on the nearby estate of Snape Park. Harold enlisted in Leyburn in 1915 and joined the 13th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment. The Battalion mobilised and arrived in France on June 6th 1916. The Battalion went into the front line near Loos and would see action at The Battle of Ancre on the Somme. In 1917 they saw action during the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line and at the Battle of Cambrai. March 21st 1918 saw the start of the German Spring Offensive. At the action between Arras and Bapaume on the 22nd March Private Harold Binks was killed. His body was never recovered. He is commemorated on the Arras Memorial. He was 23 years of age.
-
Arthur John Buchanan Richardson
Arthur John Buchanan Richardson Arthur was born in Guisborough North Yorkshire in the first quarter 1895. He was the eldest son of Colonel William Richardson, a solicitor of Guisborough and his wife Averil Mary, daughter of Arthur Buchannan, also a solicitor of Guisborough. Arthur entered Rugby Public School, Warwickshire, in 1909 and left in 1913. In August 1913 he entered as an Articled Clerk in the firm of Solicitors founded by his great grandfather and carried on by his grandfather. He received his Commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 4th Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment in June, 1913, and went to camp with them in August, 1913. He was again in camp in August 1914, at Colwyn Bay, when War broke out. The Regiment was recalled into training at Darlington, when he was given the command and a new Company of Signallers. He next went with the Battalion to Newcastle on Tyne, on coastal defence. Arthur would not die leading his men over no-man’s-land or in some heroic fighting. He would die of meningitis, contracted on service, in his billet at Newcastle on 4th January 1915. Three months later, the Battalion went out to France. Arthur was just 19 years old. A local newspaper report, headed “Cleveland Mourns the Death of a Gallant Officer”, provides details of a military funeral at Guisborough Church attended by local dignitaries: ‘The coffin was borne by men of the 4th Battalion, with fellow Officers Colonel Bell, Captain Charlton and Lts Williams and Jervelund present….