Conscientious Objectors in the First World War were caught in a complex web of bureaucracy, committees and laws which dictated what they could, and could not, do as a legally recognised Objector. The complexity of the system surrounding them commonly acted as a repressive force, but occasionally it produced clear and productive decisions. When the system worked as it should have in theory, it shows how Conscientious Objection should have been treated, exposing the hypocrisy and arbitrary nature of conscription in practice.

Murdo McKenzie’s Conscientious Objection to military service arose from his Christian faith. Born in 1890, Murdo was a roadworker in Inverness, but also an Evangelist Minister, which - as ministers of religion were automatically exempt from Conscription - should have secured him Absolute exemption from the Military. This provision of the Military Service Act 1916 had been pushed through by the established church, eager to protect it’s ministers from the war that the Church of England vehemently supported. Though ministers were exempt, the exemption in practice applied to recognised religions and religious denominations - Evangelical and Dissenting church ministers were often conscripted regardless.

Despite his occupation, Murdo was conscripted in mid 1916, and appeared before the Inverness Tribunal. It is probable that he made his case as an Objector on similar grounds to other Evangelical Christian COs, arguing that he could not fulfill both man’s law and the laws of his faith. Unable to go against his Conscientious Objection to warfare, he refused to take up an active role in the war. The Tribunal accordingly granted him “Exemption from Combatant Service Only”, a verdict which sent him to the Non-Combatant Corps, the labour and logistics battalions set up for Conscientious Objectors to provide support to the Army. In July 1916 he appeared before the Central Tribunal, which modified the verdict, allowing him exemption provided he could find Work of National Importance (WNI).

Until he could find approved work, Murdo was to be a Non-Combatant Soldier, serving with the 3rd Scottish Battalion of the NCC. In the case of many other Conscientious Objectors, this would have continued, with the CO in question kept in the NCC until 1918 or 1919, when the Army began to regularly process requests for transfer to do WNI. Often the exemption from military service provisional on obtaining WNI was lost, or forgotten, and COs found themselves kept in the NCC despite their legal exemption status.

Murdo was one of the rare COs who found that system worked as it was intended to do. He obtained work as a lock-keeper on the Caledonia Canal near Banavie, fulfilling the requirements of the Pelham Committee which oversaw WNI. They processed the request and the army released Murdo take on this work in February 1917.

Many Conscientious Objectors who could have carried out vital work in many fields and industries instead found themselves punished, imprisoned or simply wasted by the pointlessly vindictive nature of the Conscription system. Murdo was in many ways lucky - other COs capable of doing useful labour would be kept from doing so by the army until 1920.