Conscientious objectors WWII

[valerie2]

HI
   My Gr uncle was a co in the ww1 I am lucky as I have his records from ancestry.
He refused to sign any paper's have a medical. Also refused to take any order's and ran away at any opportunity. His record only consists of charges.
He spent most of his time in Wandsworth prison London. All this time he is described as mentally unstable. Not until he was given a pardon from the then home sectary was he described as a conscientious objector. He was taken home to his mother by police.
My Gr uncle was not a Quaker but his father was German so maybe he did not like the idea of killing any of his family, maybe he did not want to kill anyone.

Val

[Daisy Loo]

My grandfather was a CO, during ww2 and he was sent with his family to work on a farm.  My father is still today a CO, (on religious grounds) and is recognized as such by today's government, every now and then he gets forms that he has to complete for his family, and the rest of the congregation.

[Fitzjohn]

HI
   My Gr uncle was a co in the ww1 I am lucky as I have his records from ancestry.
He refused to sign any paper's have a medical. Also refused to take any order's and ran away at any opportunity. His record only consists of charges.
He spent most of his time in Wandsworth prison London. All this time he is described as mentally unstable. Not until he was given a pardon from the then home sectary was he described as a conscientious objector. He was taken home to his mother by police.
My Gr uncle was not a Quaker but his father was German so maybe he did not like the idea of killing any of his family, maybe he did not want to kill anyone.

Val

As with earlier posters to this thread, may I urge you to contact the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), which is creating as comprehensive a database as possible of every CO who can be traced, as a permanent record for posterity.  By comparing notes with family members, it is often found that both the family and the PPU learn something new.  There are currently 7300 names in the database, but there is still a long way to go.

Contact  www.ppu.org.uk/coproject 

[Fitzjohn]

My grandfather was a CO, during ww2 and he was sent with his family to work on a farm.  My father is still today a CO, (on religious grounds) and is recognized as such by today's government, every now and then he gets forms that he has to complete for his family, and the rest of the congregation.

May I also urge you to contact the Peace Pledge Union to ensure that your grandfather is recorded for posterity on the PPU CO database.

www.ppu.org.uk/coproject

With regard to your father, I think there must be some confusion.  As there is no conscription in Britain, and has not been since 1963, there is now no formal recognition by the government of civilians as conscientious objectors to military service.  Whatever official forms he may complete must relate to something else.  There is a procedure whereby a volunteer member of the armed forces may seek a discharge on the grounds of having become a conscientious objector to further service, but that is quite different from forms you say your father completes.

[valerie2]

Hi Fitzjohn
                Thank you for the link, I have just been reading it, and I am going to print it and put it with his records so my family can read it and have a better understanding of a co.
   I did see a form on there but it seem's more interested in live co's or there family, Sadly I missed my Gr uncle by one year he died at the age of 102 and he was the last one of that generation. And him being a co was kept secret. But I will send them an E-mail to see if they are interested.

Val

[Fitzjohn]

Thanks, Val

Although the PPU certainly welcomes enquiries from living COs and family members who knew COs personally, it equally welcomes enquiries from more remote family members.  Sometimes the PPU is asked whether there has ever been a centenarian CO to compare with centenarian old soldiers.  So far it has not been possible to identify one, partly because, until family members get in touch, birth and death dates of COs are often unknown.  Your great uncle's 102 years will be gratifyingly noted.

Fitzjohn

[valerie2]

Hi Fitzjohn
             I have sent the PPU an E-mail. I made a mistake about his age, he was 104.

[IgorStrav]

Very many thanks for the PPU website info.

My father (who features on my avatar) was a CO in WWII, and wrote an account of his experiences called "What did you do in the War, Daddy?", named after the famous poster.

At one point he had it published on the net - and I have a copy - but this post has led me to discover that the site which published it now no longer seems to exist.  So I have mailed the PPU site to see whether they would be interested in the details.

I was very fortunate that both he, and my mother, were very great story-tellers, and I am therefore the possessor of many funny and interesting tales about the second world war, and their experiences living through it.

I am sharing these with my own children, but it would be interesting to share with interested others.  This has prompted me to think of writing them up to put on my Ancestry tree.

Thanks for a thought provoking thread 

[Daisy Loo]

My grandfather was a CO, during ww2 and he was sent with his family to work on a farm.  My father is still today a CO, (on religious grounds) and is recognized as such by today's government, every now and then he gets forms that he has to complete for his family, and the rest of the congregation.

May I also urge you to contact the Peace Pledge Union to ensure that your grandfather is recorded for posterity on the PPU CO database.

www.ppu.org.uk/coproject

With regard to your father, I think there must be some confusion.  As there is no conscription in Britain, and has not been since 1963, there is now no formal recognition by the government of civilians as conscientious objectors to military service.  Whatever official forms he may complete must relate to something else.  There is a procedure whereby a volunteer member of the armed forces may seek a discharge on the grounds of having become a conscientious objector to further service, but that is quite different from forms you say your father completes.

Hi Fitzjohn...just spoken with my father...because I remember him writing out the lists of all his congregation...as I said before, My grandfather was a CO, as, now I understand, was my uncle.  My Grandfather worked on a farm, whereas my uncle was jailed.

After the war, my father's congregation went through a lot of channels to ask what needed to be done, so that everyone in their Congregation would be registered as CO's.  You are right, there is no formal recognition by the government, but they were informed to put in writing all the names and addresses, and send them to the then Department of Labour. My father only stopped doing this a few years ago.