MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT |
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MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT | |
| CECIL BLAKE 1894 - |
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| Cecil Blake was one of many International Bible Students Association (Jehovah's Witnesses) COs living in Lambeth during the First World War. IBSA teachings were explicitly anti-war, and many members opposed the war, and conscription, as COs. Cecil likely went before the Lambeth Tribunal in mid-1916, and was rejected, as he was arrested and appeared at the Wandsworth Magistrates Court as an absentee from the army in December 1916. After his arrest he was sent under guard to the East Surrey Regiment at Kingston on Thames barracks, where he refused to follow orders and was shortly sentenced to 112 days Hard Labour, to be served at Wormwood Scrubs. This short sentence at the Scrubs allowed the Central Tribunal to hear his case, but on the 27th of January 1917, he was dismissed as a "Class D" Conscientious Objector. His case viewed as invalid, this quickly led to a second court martial and second prison sentence. Oddly, by April 1917, Cecil had been sent to the Home Office Scheme at Dartmoor. This was unusual, as a place on the Home Office Scheme could only be secured through the Central Tribunal judging a CO as "genuine". It is possible that after his second sentence, Cecil was reevaluated and passed for the scheme, but it is equally possible that his transfer was due to the confusion and byzantine bureaucracy that surrounded the workings of the Home Office Centres. Cecil would have been released from the Home Office Centre at some time in mid 1919.
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