The No-Conscription Fellowship was a British pacifist organization which was founded in London by Fenner Brockway and Clifford Allen on 27 November 1914, following a suggestion by Lilla Brockway, [2] after the First World War had failed to reach an early conclusion. [3] Other prominent supporters included John Clifford, Bruce Glasier, Hope Squire, Bertrand Russell, Robert Smillie and Philip Snowden. [3]
A focus of the campaign was the Military Service Act which introduced conscription in 1916. [3] Branches were established across the country, leaflets were produced and deputations sent to lobby Parliament. They were successful in getting provision for conscientious objectors in the bill, [3] but opposed the establishment of the army's Non-Combatant Corps.
The founders and other members were jailed for their opposition to conscription. Bertrand Russell took over from Clifford Allen as the chairman of the organisation while Catherine Marshall took over from Fenner Brockway as secretary. Marshall was in love with Clifford Allen and, when he was suffering from the effects of imprisonment, she drove herself to the point of exhaustion and Lilla Brockway then resumed the role of secretary in 1917, [4] as she had been provisional secretary in 1916. The National Committee in 1916 was A. Barratt Brown, Alfred Salter, Aylmer Rose, Bertrand Russell, C.H. Norman, Catherine Marshall, Clifford Allen, Edward Grubb, Fenner Brockway, John P. Fletcher, Morgan Jones, Rev. Leyton Richards, Will Chamberlain. [1]
The Scottish organisation was led by Marjory Newbold, whose husband Walton became a Communist MP. [5]
Branches were established across the country and the first national convention was held on 27 November 1915 at the Congregational Memorial Hall. The second convention was held the following year on 8 April at Devonshire House — a Quaker meeting place in Bishopsgate. Beatrice Webb, who was pro-war, recorded the occasion in her diary, [6]
The Friends' Meeting House ... was packed with some 2,000 young men — the National Convention of the No-Conscription Fellowship. ... Among the 2,000 were many diverse types. The intellectual pietist, slender in figure, delicate in feature and complexion, benevolent in expression was the dominant type. These youths were saliently conscious of their own righteousness. ... On the platform were the sympathisers with the movement — exactly the sort of persons you would expect to find at such a meeting — older pacifists and older rebels — Bertrand Russell, Robert Trevelyan, George Lansbury, Olive Schreiner, Lupton, Stephen and Rosa Hobhouse, Dr Clifford, C.H. Norman, Miss Llewelyn Davies and the Snowdens: the pacifist predominating over the rebel element.
From March 1916 the NCF published The Tribunal. In an effort to suppress this publication, the police raided the National Labour Press and dismantled the printing press. However the NCF had a secret press and were able to continue publishing. [7]
Historian Thomas Kennedy says that during the last two years of the war, the NCF remained a: [8]
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Archibald Fenner Brockway, Baron Brockway was a British socialist politician, humanist campaigner and anti-war activist.
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Reginald Clifford Allen, 1st Baron Allen of Hurtwood, known as Clifford Allen, was a British politician, leading member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), and prominent pacifist.
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Stephen Henry Hobhouse was an English peace activist, prison reformer, and religious writer.
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A Conscientious Objector is an "individual who has refused to take part in the Great War". There were different meanings for this, for example, religious meanings, freedom of thought, conscience, and disability. In many countries Conscientious Objectors are forced to do other services as a substitute for military service. Conscientious Objectors were often seen as cowards. Many people from across the United Kingdom were considered to be Conscientious Objectors during the First World War, and the movement was as pronounced in Wales as in any other part of the county.
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Lilla Brockway was a British suffragist, socialist, and pacifist. It was a suggestion of Lilla's which initiated the No-Conscription Fellowship. As such, it has been written that Lilla Brockway "may truly be regarded as the Mother of the British C.O. [conscientious objectors'] movement".