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THE MEN WHO SAID NO | ROAD TO CONSCRIPTION | CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION | PRISONS | SENTENCED TO DEATH | TRIBUNALS | WIDER CONTEXT | INDEX
ERNEST ROBERT HEARN 1882 -  

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Brothers Roland and Ernest Hearn were living in Surbiton when they were called up under the Military Service Act 1916 as conscripts. Both were single and working in occupations not considered important to the war effort and were therefore among the first group of men from the area to be called up. Both applied to the Surbiton Tribunal for exemption as Conscientious Objectors in March 1916. While their motivations for doing so are not known, Roland and Ernest both made their stance clear - they were willing to take up Non-Combatant service, either with the Royal Army Medical Corps or Non-Combatant Corps (NCC). In taking up this stance they became "Alternativists", COs who would take up alternative forms of service as conscripts, but, crucially, none that would involve taking life. Both men were quickly sent to the NCC, arriving at the Kingston Barracks in early April. From there, the brothers were separated. Ernest served his time with the NCC on the Home Front, providing logistical and labour support for the army, returning with general demobilisation in April 1919. Roland, however, quickly fell ill, spending much of 1916 in hospital with Measles complicated by Pneumonia. While his older brother was working in the NCC, Roland was in and out of Army Hospitals. A year later, on the 25th of March 1917, he died in Aldershot. He was only 20 years old. More COs died of illness during the war than from any other cause, but their deaths can be firmly traced to the conflict they were trapped within. With the aggregation of huge numbers of men, poor conditions and often substandard medical treatment even by contemporary levels, war created the circumstances by which disease could easily take the lives of thousands of men. The two brothers had shared the same convictions and experiences, but we must ask how it must have felt for Ernest to return home, proud of their stand against militarism, or distraught at the loss of his brother?

 

 

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CO DATA

Born: 1882
Died:
Address: 25 King Charles Crescent, Surbiton, London
Tribunal: Surbiton
Prison: xxx
HO Scheme:
CO Work: NCC [1]
Occupation: Gardener

Motivation:

NON-COMBATANT

 


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