Lives of the First World War: the Pearce CO Register

Further to previous updates and to enquiries among interested people, this is what appears to be happening with the invaluable database of First World War Conscientious Objectors compiled and maintained by Cyril Pearce, now that the former link no longer functions (except by redirecting to the IWM's 'holding' page).

With grateful thanks to correspondents on the 'Remembering the Real WW1' mailing list (to sign up, email remembering-the-real-ww1-subscribe@lists.riseup.net)

1. From Working Class Movement Library, 51 The Crescent, Salford M5 4WX

The Imperial War Museum is transferring all its WW1 digital material generated during the commemoration period onto what it is calling its 'Permanent Digital Memory' (PDM). This will include their version of the Pearce Register.  Cyril Pearce has had an initial conversation with the people who are migrating the IWM material to the PDM and has been assured that the migrated version of the database can be developed to do all that he would like it to do.  These conversations are ongoing and it’s not yet clear how long migration is likely to take. In the meantime there is an up-to-date version of the database available for consultation in the Working Class Movement Library - contact info@wcml.org.uk.

2. From passed-on reply from CP about his register

The  answer... is that it will be back in a new format in June. The IWM has decided that it can't sustain 'Lives of the First World War' as an interactive website and has shut it down. The plan is for all the material gathered on the site, including the Pearce Register, to be 'migrated' to a new Permanent Digital Memory (PDM) which will still be searchable but no longer inter-active. In other words you won't be able to add anything to it as you could with 'Lives'.

There is a new IT company in charge of the process, Knowledge Integration which is based in Sheffield... [The Chief Programmer] now has a copy of the current version of the Pearce Register with 19,780 entries, and will incorporate it in the PDM version from June onwards... [U]nless the plan changes, the current 19,780 will become the 'permanent' version as far as the IWM's PDM is concerned.

[Discussing making the 'new' version more searchable and up-dateable] but, when it's all over, the Pearce Register is only a small part of 'Lives' and the 'architecture' of its existing software may not allow it...

The preferred long-term plan is still to create a free-standing or university-hosted version of the Pearce Register...

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Coincidentally and somewhat ironically, a good new example of the way the database has been helping researchers has just been published on the Aberdeen Protest blog (see our 'Kindred Spirit' links) under the heading World War One conscientious objectors (1914 – 1918) - March 28, 2019 by aberdeenprotest

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LATEST UPDATE FROM EMAIL CONVERSATION

As you have found the IWM have taken down their 'Lives Of The First World War' web pages where the Pearce Register was hosted. The version on line there dated from 2014 and only included 16500 COs. The current version of the Register has almost 20,000 names. Even prior to this year, the IWM weren't able to load a new version of the Register on to their web site.

Over the last couple of years Cyril Pearce has been investigating several possibilities for a long-term 'host' of the Register where it could be available to the public and regularly updated. I and others had discussions with Bristol University in this but were unsuccessful.

Discussions are ongoing. One possible answer seems to be a new, permanent, place on the IWM website. It seems this may be resolved over the next few months.

As someone in the email trail notes the Commemoration, Conflict & Conscience Festival in Bristol on 27/28 April will include a session where local researchers into COs can meet and compare notes. The future of the Register will obviously be an important part of this discussion. Hopefully you and others you know will be able to come to Bristol.

The full programme of the festival is at

https://everydaylivesinwar.herts.ac.uk/ccc/

The programme of talks etc is at

https://everydaylivesinwar.herts.ac.uk/ccc/mshed-panels/

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Two examples of transcriptions from the now closed online verson, 

showing the amount and range of information that could be discovered there.