Remembering War-Resisters in Scotland

Brief Book Review

Objectors & Resisters: Opposition to Conscription and War in Scotland 1914-18, by Robert Duncan (Glasgow: Common Print/Common Weal, March 2015)

 

Dedicated "To all peace activists, whatever your political views". 

According to the London Rebel History Calendar 2016, on 24 November 1918 a mass meeting of the North London Herald League demanded the release of jailed socialist John MacLean. His name and record of resolute opposition to the First World War will be familiar, up to a point, to many radical historians, as will several other aspects of the story told in Robert Duncan’s excellent book: the Glasgow rent strike, industrial unrest, the launch of the Women’s Peace Crusade.  It breaks new ground, however, in collating and adding to the information available on these and other topics, and deserves to be widely read.

The longest chapters are 4 and 5, dealing with conscientious objectors (COs), arguably the group whose anti-war stance cost them the most. From the Acknowledgements, the author’s work on the book was completed in January 2015, so that he would probably not have had access to the Pearce Register online. Nor does he refer to many of the secondary sources published or re-issued and updated in or shortly after 2014, which in any case tend to be rather short on information about Scotland. This means that he relies extensively on his own original research in newspapers and periodicals and often on the accounts of his protagonists themselves, providing resounding statements of principle and heartening examples of resistance.

Obtainable from the publishers - advisable to allow 2-3 weeks for delivery on recent experience.

 "In the case of hunger strikers, we could always feed them artificially in the last resort, but in the case of the work striker we can do nothing..." 

 - Excerpt from confidential Scottish Police Commissioner's report on prominent CO James Maxton in Perth prison, June 1917, on p.84 of the book.

New Online Resources for Radical Historians (1)

1. Appeals Against Conscription in Scotland, First World War

Some Military Service Appeals Tribunal records are now available on ScotlandsPeople, as follows:

"Now available to search are 7,977 index entries relating to the Appeal cases of 5,820 men seeking exemption from military service between 1916 and 1918. Fully searchable by name, address, grounds, and occupation, the index is FREE* to search, offering access to a little-known series of records which are of importance to family and military historians alike. Each record is a full colour facsimile of the Appeal case documents, and for an introductory period, are only 10 credits (2.33GBP) to view. Find out more about the Military Service Appeals Tribunal Records.

*Index for Military Service Appeals Tribunal Records is free to search. Images are chargeable and can be viewed for 10 credits per document until 3 December 2015, and will cost 20 credits per document thereafter. "

[Unlike the Middlesex Appeal Tribunal records, these are unfortunately not free to download. Credits can be purchased on the website in batches of 30 for £7.]

"The Military Service Tribunal system was set up under the Military Service Act 1916, which set down the terms for mandatory military service and came into force on 2 March 1916. The new Military Service Act required all adult males, aged 18-41, to register for military service unless they were married, widowed with children, serving in the Royal Navy, a minister of religion, or working in a reserved occupation. From 1916, volunteers and conscripted men seeking exemption from military service could apply to Tribunals for temporary, conditional or permanent exemption. The Military Service Appeals Tribunal Records cover the Local Tribunal areas of Edinburgh, the Lothians and the Borders. Other chance survivals exist, including papers from the Ross, Cromarty and Sutherland (Lewis Section) Appeal Tribunal, which are preserved as part of Stornoway Sheriff Court records."

"Each set of case papers should include an appeal form, local tribunal application form and a notice of decision form which confirms the final decision of the Appeal Tribunal. The appeal application form gives the address, age and occupation in most cases. Some appeals papers include additional correspondence in support of the appeal. For some entries the appeal papers themselves do not survive, but related applications for medical re-examination have survived. This will be indicated in the relevant index entries. Applications for medical re-examination include the name of a person, address, occupation, age and the result of the examination."

"A minority of the cases were appeals made by conscientious objectors..."

Among the sample case studies presented on the website, one or two are of particular interest in relation to other material on this blog, on opposition to the war:-

 Robert Logan, a 21 year old coalminer from Tranent, was a conscientious objector. Applications on the ground of Conscientious Objection had to be supported with proof of ‘genuine conscientious conviction’ as set out in an official form. (Robert Logan, HH30/28/1/20)

In support of his appeal, Robert Logan wrote:

“In claiming exemption from Military Service I do so because as an International Socialist I believed it is immoral for man to take from his fellow man that which he cannot replace or return & as this presently applies to all human life I regard all such life as sacred & war immoral in the extreme. I believe in International Brotherhood not as an idle dream but as a social ideal possible of achievement. The workers of the world are bound by all the ties that bind kindred & more. They have the same aspirations & the same ideals & co-operate together with one another to add to the worlds store of happiness. No matter how perfidious Governments or our iniquitous press may disguise these facts & no matter how successful they may be in temporarily for their own material motives (Witness the "Secret Treaties" published by the Russian Bolshevik Government) in persuading certain groups of workers to hate one another & to act viciously towards one another & to act viciously towards one another I will not be a party to their crime against humanity.”

 This passionate expression of his ethics was effective. The Tribunal were unanimous that his convictions were sincere and he was granted exemption from combatant service on 11 May 1918. He died in Tranent in 1943, aged 49. 

[Robert Logan does not show up on the Pearce Register online]

Thirty-six year old Malcolm Martin was originally from Stornoway but by 1916 was working as a shepherd in Punta Arenas, South America. A temporary holiday back to the Isle of Lewis led to Malcolm’s appeal submitted 25 February 1916. (Malcolm Martin, SC33/62/1/34) 

“The appellant is a shepherd who came to Lewis on a visit shortly before the outbreak of the present war. He was not therefore ‘ordinarily resident’ in Great Britain on August 15 last and the Military Service Act does not apply to him. Further, he was engaged in his occupation as a Shepherd at Punta Arenas, South America and when making said visit to Lewis his intention was and is to return to Punta Arenas where he has a troop of horses and other property – all his property and interests are situated there and Some are now requiring Appellants personal attention”.

As he was not ordinarily resident and his business remained in Argentina, Malcolm applied for absolute exemption on grounds of serious hardship. His appeal was refused on 31 March 1916 “in respect that applicant doesn’t come within the exceptions specified in the first schedule to the Military Service Act 1916”.

Martin’s appeal was unsuccessful and he subsequently drowned with many other returning soldiers* when HMY Iolaire sank in The Minch, close to its destination, Stornoway, off the north-western coast of Scotland on 1 January 1919.

[*In fact most of the men lost were sailors who had been serving in the Royal Naval Reserve.]

Case studies as above are accompanied by images of extracts from the relevant documents.

Permanent Play Preferable to Patriotism

MY MOTTO

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

But not being patriotic, I’m afraid I don’t agree.

For if I had a motto I am sure that it would be

Melius et dulcius est – semper ludere.

13-year-old schoolgirl in the Nicolson Institute Annual (Stornoway, Isle of Lewis) 1961.
(Latin: melius = better; dulcius = sweeter; semper = always; ludere = to play)

Sorting Out Some WW1 COs: A Bunch of Anarchists

As has been pointed out, the limited way in which the Pearce Register of First World War Conscientious Objectors (COs) has been made available to researchers via the Imperial War Museum’s website is far from ideal from the viewpoint of a radical historian. Locating the records within ‘Lives of the First World War’ tends to emphasise the individual and particular at the expense of any attempt to see a broader picture or assess either the numbers (other than the overall total, currently running at 17,426 records) or characteristics of those who refused the call-up. Without the spreadsheet format enabling sorting and counting by (for example) occupation, location, prison, work centre etc., it becomes extremely laborious and time-consuming to discern patterns of resistance. For that, each transcript has to be looked at and the requisite data extracted and used to reconstruct the relevant section of the database one way or another. 

It has its uses, however, and the results of Cyril Pearce’s massive research work can be deployed in various interesting ways by those who care to dig, and have some idea what they’re looking for.

Keyword ‘Anarchist’

Historians have generally had a blind spot when it comes to anarchists, even when these were not written out of the narrative on purpose – there may be some excuse for this, in some cases, insofar as anarchists are probably less likely than most other people to leave traces among bureaucratic records and archives (fortunately there are other sources, now being increasingly discovered and mined) – and the story of opposition to the First World War has not been much of an exception to the trend. Thus in considering political as against religious motivation for conscientious objection, ‘socialist’ seems to have been the default assumption and label of choice. Searching for ‘socialist’ on the database results in 20 times as many hits as for ‘anarchist’. But to be able to get at transcripts for 25 of the latter is at least a start, and potentially a helpful addition to other work on this topic, most relevantly here that of Nick Heath. In just one article looking at ‘Two little known events’ he supplies a dozen more names for the list (which can almost all be found on the database, although most not with ‘anarchist’), confirming that ‘much more investigation needs to be done’.

As a small contribution, this blogpost looks at some of what can be found out about anarchist war-resisters by merging the two sets of records (keyword-anarchist and names-from-Heath-article) and sorting the information that turns up, variable in quantity and quality though it inevitably is, to draw out a few threads that may suggest more bits of the pattern of resistance.

Guy Aldred

   Who    

·         Not all formally COs – some ignored the whole system and went on the run, some were not eligible (conscription was initially for single males aged 18-40, married men becoming liable a few months later), 

·         Some Famous names whose stories are available more fully elsewhere, e.g. Guy Aldred, Lilian Wolfe/Woolf (not the only woman who shows up on the database, obviously as an opponent of the war* rather than a CO as such).    

·         Some overlap with the work of Ken Weller as well as Nick Heath’s.

 *... front page article in April 1916 for the Voice of Labour entitled Defying the Act. 10,000 leaflets reproducing the article were run off by [Tom] Keell and distributed by Lilian Wolfe. Some were intercepted by the police. This resulted in a raid on the Freedom Press offices on 5th May, with the arrests of Keell and Wolfe. –  NH https://libcom.org/history/dunn-fred-1884-1925  

   Why    

Not all were necessarily professedly anarchist at the time or consistently anarchist later;and many have a combination of motives attributed to them. Examples:

·         Agnostic (2); Anarchist (5);Anarchist (?);Anarchist/Socialist (?) (2); Communist Anarchist (2)

·         Atheist/ Anarchist; 'Anarchist, Communist, Socialist' etc.; "Communal Anarchist", NCF; 

·         Anarchist/Communist; Atheist, Trade union; Non-Sect[arian], Tolstoyan/Anarchist (3);

·         Anarchist, 'Non-Sect', No-Conscription Fellowship (NCF), Workers' Freedom Group; 

·         Moral and International, North London Herald League;

·         NCF, Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), Socialist;

·         ILP, 'tending towards Anarchist'; NCF, 'New Church', Anarchist; NCF, Socialist;

·         Non-Sect, NCF, Anarchist-Communist, Esperanto, Vegetarian;

·         Revolutionary Socialist lecturer and labour organiser, NCF;

·         Socialist (?),Assistant Editor of Guy Aldred's "The Spur", North London Herald League, Atheist;

·         Socialist, British Socialist Party (BSP), Atheist, NCF;

·         Theosophist, Anarchist-Communist, SSS [?] - Young Socialist magazine organiser;

            Tribunal convinced he was an Anarchist. 

Tribunals denied anarchists (and most non-religious claimants) any right to a conscience

·             Where 

Work is being done on the geographical spread of COs, mapping clusters and so on, as Cyril Pearce told last year’s Peace History conference. The ‘anarchists’ were quite widely spread, from or associated with: Abertillery; Nottingham (2); Colchester; London – Edmonton, Forest Gate/ West Ham, Harringay, Highgate/ Hornsey, Shepherd's Bush (2), St Pancras, Tooting, Watford; Liverpool; Glasgow (2); Liversedge, Yorks.; Manchester (3); Burnley, St Helens (2); Stockport* (10); Whiteway Colony, Stroud (4).

*... Anarchist Congress held in Hazel Grove, Stockport in April 1915, where the British anarchist movement took a “strongly anti-militaristic attitude… with “only two voices …raised to support those who favored war”. – Nick Heath, https://libcom.org/history/dunn-fred-1884-1925 - See also article by NH as above, for Stockport and Abertillery.

     Occupations

A few ‘professsional revolutionaries’ – e.g. Journalist - Anarchist journal Freedom, Editor 'The Spur', Editor and contributor ''Freedom' and 'Voice of Labour'. Others include:

·         Lithographer; Cinematograph operator;

·         Cotton operative; Weaver, cotton; Spinner; Doffer - cotton spinning,

·         Dyer's Labourer; Hat leather cutter; Furniture trade;

·         Goods porter; GPO Sorter; Labourer; Market gardener; Mechanic; Miner;

·         Elocutionist, concert artist, Musician, Violinist, and composer, Theatrical and musical professional;

·         Shipping clerk, former railway clerk; Street sweeper;

·         Shop assistant; Tobacconist/Cigar manufacturer.

     ‘War Service’ [sic – their main service was of course to oppose the war and resist its enforcers]

Some got away in time or absconded – 'Evaded the draft' and went to the USA (2); Allegedly made his way to the USA and worked in the Ferrer School in New York; AWOL (See Police Gazette 19.12.16)

Others were caught up in the military machine: Fovant Camp, Blackdown; Court Martial (CM) Chester Castle; Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force; Non-combatant Corps; R.[Welch] Fusiliers; taken to France from Kinmel Park (NCC); Birkenhead (2); NCC Pontefract; Chatham; Hurdcott Camp; Sherwood Foresters (2). It is no surprise that they were among those most harshly treated, the notorious brutality at Birkenhead barracks being one of the worst examples.    

     

Refusing to obey orders meant court martial and prison, with the prevalent practice of imposing repeated two-year sentences with hard labour. Many saw the insides of several prisons over a number of years, Wormwood Scrubs most frequently, plus or minus one or more of: Winchester; Wandsworth; Brixton ; Gloucester; Walton, Liverpool; Shrewsbury; Rouen Military Prison; Leeds; Manchester, Strangeways; Birmingham; Durham; Maidstone;  Preston; Parkhurst; Exeter; Chester; Newcastle.

In spite of everything many rejected the alternative of government-directed ‘work of national importance’, the Home Office Scheme (‘refused to accept HOS’), although some did proceed to camps and work centres eventually; Dyce Camp; Ballachulish; Wakefield Experiment; Platt Field, Manchester; Denton Road Board Camp; Knutsford; and Dartmoor.

No surprise either that their names are linked with episodes of resistance such as:

·         Hunger strike - released by order of GOC;

·         Wakefield Work Camp - rejected work,

·         Wakefield Experiment 7.10.18 work strike;

·         AWOL from Dartmoor;

·         Liverpool mass Hunger strike 22.7.18 as protest with other COs (2);

·         hunger strike 20.8.18 to 23.8.18;

·         hunger strike, 1.9.17 to 30.10.17;

·         force fed 50 times 'to finish or release him'

·         absentee and forged documents;

·         absconded on a bike and rode back to Glasgow.

Finally (for now), another useful feature of the database is the ‘Sources’ heading which allows the checking and following up of individual stories, and includes documentation from the peace movement and publications by a few radical historians as well as official archives and press reports.

(More names and case studies to follow in future posts.)

Remembering the Real: Refusal, Resistance, Revolt!

Opposition to the First World War

How it was motivated and sustained: An outline

Because those who took an anti-war position were in a minority, and challenged basic tenets of the dominant ideology, there was a tendency for them to be ignored by or written out of orthodox history for much of the 20^th century. More recent mainstream work has partly compensated for earlier neglect. At the same time, their awareness of disapproved, dissident status along with a strong conviction of being in the right, led activists to propagate their opinions by publishing their own versions of events, and in some cases gave their political successors an interest in rescuing them from oblivion.

Socialists and Libertarians

With socialist parties gaining ground in the early years of the century, and employing rhetoric about workers uniting across international boundaries against the common capitalist enemy, governments might well have had misgivings about the likely popular reaction to a declaration of war. Although in the event the initial upsurge of patriotic fervour in each of the belligerent countries rather exceeded expectations – some of the most prominent labour leaders immediately came out in support of the war – there were groups and factions who took a principled stance, holding meetings and distributing leaflets denouncing the aims and actions of their rulers. Notable among those, in Britain, were the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and sections of the Herald League such as that in North London. Ken Weller’s case-study of the latter uses a variety of sources to give a picture of a population far from united in support for the war, and disinclined to suffer its effects passively.

In 1912 an anti-war leaflet, “Murder is murder” was published by well-known anarcho-syndicalist Tom Mann, incurring a prison sentence; he continued to speak out during the conflict, sometimes sharing a platform with Sylvia Pankhurst. Anarchists and libertarians, by definition “agin the government” and hostile to authority, on finding themselves in a situation where the state explicitly arrogated to itself the ultimate power over every citizen, were more or less bound to deny any justification for war. They were therefore, it is probably true to say, more consistent in their adverse response than other sections of the left – although the foremost anarchist theoretician, Kropotkin, was an unfortunate exception.

Writers, Philosophers, Pacifists

The decision not to fight might arise as a private and personal matter, not that it could remain so, especially when conscription made it punishable by trial and imprisonment, or worse. But it was often proclaimed and publicised with evangelical passion. “It was an objection to having one’s life dictated by an outside authority,” stated Edward Marten (a Quaker), while Fenner Brockway explained that he and fellow conscientious objectors (COs) were not merely resisting a Conscription Act but “witnessing for peace... Not only against the war of 1914-18, but... against war altogether.”

Views expressed by writers were, unsurprisingly, varied, complex, often contradictory, and did not remain static. There were those who, like George Bernard Shaw, felt their intelligence outraged by the reasons advanced for going to war. Others fit more closely the romantic-poetic image: starting out with excitement, even enthusiasm, later to be overcome by disillusion and despair. The negative reaction did not inevitably entail refusing to fight any more, but was perceived as subversive enough when articulated openly as in Siegfried Sassoon’s cogent criticism of “the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men were being sacrificed.” (His now celebrated manifesto was first published in the Workers’ Dreadnought).

Outspoken public opposition to the war was also voiced by some of the most intellectually high-powered thinkers of the day, in particular Bertrand Russell, who of course became and continued to be a leading advocate of international peace, still taking on the war-mongering state as a civil-disobedient nonagenarian in the early 1960s.

Some Feminists

From opposing viewpoints, both of gender stereotyping and of a rational assessment of the position of women in society, it might have been concluded that active patriotism was not something for women, and that the idea of their participation in war (anyway supposed to be vicarious or at most supportive) should be rejected. Of course, they did participate in all sorts of ways. The feminist movement had for some time been showing, in struggling for the vote, some of what women were capable of in the way of organisation, forcefulness, courage and endurance. Historians still sometimes allege or imply that “the Suffragettes” supported the war en masse, and were rewarded by the limited franchise bestowed in 1918 by a grateful state. In fact the split, already apparent, between advocates of spectacular, often self-martyring individual “deeds” and those who turned to class struggle, became explicit on the question of the war. It is famously epitomised in the contrast presented by Sylvia Pankhurst, working with women in London’s East End, and her mother and one sister exhorting young men to get out there and be killed.

Industry and the Armed Forces

Actions that subverted the war effort did not necessarily arise from, or lead to, a pacifist outlook. They did at least indicate, however, that a point could be reached – especially, and crucially, within the industrial workforce and among the fighting troops themselves – where marching along, in step with the supposed national consensus, ceased to be of paramount concern. Inadequate pay, unbearable conditions, irrational orders and enforced subjection to harsh discipline repeatedly provoked outbreaks of resistance, even at risk of the heaviest penalty. There were mutinies by British and Commonwealth troops as well as extensively in the French army. Both countries saw significant episodes of industrial militancy: France’s  ”year of unrest”, 1917, and Britain’s “Red Clydeside” with added rent strikes. Reverberations from the Russian Revolution contributed to challenging the complacency of the dominant class.

Changing Attitudes

 Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s novel Sunset Song (1932, first part of his trilogy A Scots Quair) gives a powerful impression of the impact of the First World War on a rural Scottish community. In it (spoiler alert) the young guy who unthinkingly goes off to join up, after a process of coarsening and de- then re-sensitising, eventually turns his back (literally) on the whole business and is shot as a deserter. Meanwhile the local conscientious objector, having held out against public opinion and official disapproval, finally and fatally decides he is unable to stay uninvolved and is killed in his turn. This kind of fictional scenario parallels the view of some historians that people in society at large, as they became aware of casualty figures and battlefield horrors, came to despise the rhetorical propaganda of patriotism and to see through the rationale for going to war – even if perversely or desperately determined to see it through to the bitter end, in a vicious spiral of yet more sacrifice to make the preceding sacrifice seem “not in vain”.

Retrospect (from 1998)

During the 80^th anniversary commemorations of the Armistice, in Britain at least, there were many harrowing depictions of horrors of war, and many statements about its futility, including some from surviving veterans. It has become possible, indeed customary, to acknowledge mistakes and even denounce crimes committed by the authorities, in their conduct of campaigns and in having shell-shock sufferers “shot at dawn”. Conspicuously absent, though, was any allusion to those who consciously, deliberately opposed the war at the time, and were prepared to act individually or collectively to resist it, at whatever risk. Opinion-formers in society are evidently more comfortable with the idea of tragic victims safely entombed in the past than with any realisation that they might have tried to confront and alter their apparently inexorable fate.

L.W.

Nov. 1998, revised Dec. 2013

The above fairly basic stuff, mostly from 15 years ago, is offered as a contribution to the “remembering-the-real” discussion around the WW1 centenary.

Remembering the Real World War 1

Meeting of some London folk, 21st November, 2013

[Update: The London group met again on Thursday 12th December (report to follow). Further meetings are planned monthly in the new year, starting on Thursday 16th January].

Edited report from organiser’s notes

Some (10) of us met up last Thursday to discuss ideas around counter-histories of World War 1, and taking forward opposition to the upcoming official commemorations. We had a good practical meeting with some concrete decisions…

We did agree to set up as a London group, not yet named, that would meet regularly; we hope similar groups may be set up elsewhere.

One suggestion for principles which we all liked was:-
• We honour all the dead.
• The war arose from normal capitalist social relations.
• Working class resistance stopped the war.

(These may need to be expanded on).

The London group will meet again on Thursday 12th December, at 7.30 at the Mayday Rooms, 88 Fleet St, London.

(NB: Anyone interested in a radical history of Fleet St, could come at 6.00/6.15, for a brief walking tour)

General discussion:

Events and aspects of WW1 worth doing something around:

• The networks of resistance, around the UK (and wider), supporting people refusing conscription….

Opposition to the war: leaflets shown on the cover of Ken Weller’s Don’t Be A Soldier!

• How the government acted when war came: the moments it started, they took over all the railways, stopped police leave, requisitioned all horses, introduced legislation to crack down on opposition; also changed licensing laws to try to increase production, interned “suspect” foreigners. Later introduced conscription, after initial euphoric flood of volunteers dried up in 1915; 1915 Munitions Act: government took over all factories for arms production.

On one hand this illustrates the nature of war under the modern capitalist state; on the other, its unlikely the centenary commemorations will flag these repressive measures - not like they’re going to say: hey, look, we introduced conscription! etc. We will have to bang on about all that.

• Some discussion on the myth that World War 1 liberated women

• Theories of the origins of the war: e.g, a theory that WW1 was in effect started to control rebellious working class around Europe.

• Big business: who profited from the war? New technology, armaments…

• Shared myths of war; WW2 as shared national sacrifice obviously very big. But WW1 myth needs examining.…

  Contacts with people/groups also working on this issue in other countries

Someone/ people from Bristol RadicalHistory Group were going to raise WW1 centenary at an international Radical History Conference in Berlin in October.
 [Link to BRH spreadsheet on mutinies/strikes in the British armed forces in early 1919.]

             Obviously also there will be a lot of activity in Ireland around 2016, 
              100 years since the Easter Rising…

Practical suggestions

A timeline of events planned for the official commemorations; from that we could work out some concrete plans.

Activities we could do:
• Actions at or counter to official events, to raise awareness, say we’re still here, still opposing war.
• Specific actions or demos to commemorate specific events: one that has already been suggested was the big anti-war demo in 1914, just before war was declared;

Another idea we came up with at the meeting was a demo at the reopening of the Imperial War Museum’s WW1 exhibits whenever that may be.

One of the biggest events next year will be on Remembrance Day …

              Setting up our own counterfeit war memorials, plaques etc.

•Plus: a dedicated website or blog, which could serve as a focus for groups nationally; •publicity: media stunts; music (anti-war songs from history); stickers; and publications such as a short pamphlet summing up anti-war resistance in London.

And more…
RaHN will continue to add general blogposts on this, but to keep fully up to date, join the email list:

remembering-the-real-ww1-subscribe@lists.riseup.net  (send an mail then reply to the email it sends to you)

Silvio Corio and Son

Syndicalist (and North-East London) Connections

Recently found in Ron’s Archive at http://thesparrowsnest.org.uk:

Three letters, from/to/about respectively Silvio Corio, the Italian anarchist who was the long-term partner of Sylvia Pankhurst (see blog post here, September 2010), and one to their son Richard Pankhurst about his Conscientious Objector (CO) Tribunal, when he was appealing against conscription for National Service.

Thanks to the Sparrows Nest collective for making these generally available.

1. Letter: editor of the Syndicalist Workers Federation paper Direct Action to Richard Pankhurst.

25a Amberley Road., London, W.9

November 5^th, 1952

Richard Pankhurst.

Dear Comrade,

Very many thanks for sending us the material on your C.O. tribunal.  After discussion, we decided that publication in the form of a letter from yourself might well have the effect of prejudicing your appeal, and that it would be better to put it in the form of an article.    We hope this will be o.k.

                Hoping you will keep us informed of developments, and that your appeal will be successful.

Every good wish, Yours fraternally,

 [copy unsigned] for editorial office

 Database reference for image of original at Sparrows Nest website as above:  RON00668

 Note: 

“... the procedure of appearing before a Local or Appellate tribunal could be a harrowing business for the one objector among every six hundred recruits.” – Trevor Royle, National Service: The Best Years of Their Lives,  p.46. (Paperback 2011; first published 2002,).

According to the National Archives website most National Service records, including those for appeals tribunals, have been destroyed

2.  Letter from Silvio Corio to the Syndicalist Workers Federation (SWF) about their forthcoming Conference, 1953, with mention of Richard Pankhurst.

On headed paper: New Times and Ethiopia News (Weekly). Editor: E. Sylvia Pankhurst

Oct. 8 ‘53

Dear Com. Green,

Many thanks for notification of Conference.  If you could favour me with the date when it will effectively be held I should be grateful. I will attend – if permitted – merely as an observer. And – if you have no objection –  I will take with me Richard. He is very interested in the Labour Movement of today. Before long his book on Wm. Thompson will be published by Messrs. Watts & Co. It should have appeared already but these people are so slow. He is now teaching Economics for the W.E.A. at Woolwich, thanks to his Ph.D. degree. He wants to know, at first hand, the opinions of English workers of today. A few days ago I had a letter from Alan Smith quite favourable to your work. You know him of course.

Best wishes,
Sincerely,                           S. Corio

Database reference for image of original at Sparrows Nest website:  RON01896

Notes:
The New Times and Ethiopia News was an anti-fascist and anti-imperialist paper run by Silvio Corio and Sylvia Pankhurst, originally in response to Mussolini’s attack on Ethiopia.

A short biography of Silvio Corio can be found at www.libcom.org. Also at LibCom: “The North East London Anarchist Group: A short history ... founded in 1946”, < http://www.libcom.org/history/north-east-london-anarchist-group> by Nick Heath. Mentions Alan Smith, Peter Green and Mario Mantovani as well as Corio himself.

Next Time: the SWF replies to Corio, and a sad announcement.