William Anderton was an Accountant’s clerk living in Leominster when he received his call up papers. In his spare time William was the secretary for the local branch of the Adult School Union. (Just before the war there were some 1900 ASU schools consisting of 114,000 adults. One of the fundament principles of the School was to be ‘Democratic, unsectarian, and use non-party methods of working’) Values which quite possibly influenced William to seek exemption from military service.

William was refused exemption at his first Military Service Tribunal in Leominster but on subsequent appeal was granted ‘Exemption from Combatant Service’ on condition that he joins the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). The RAMC did not want him. Now technically in the Non-Combatant Corps (NCC) this meant he was subject to direct military orders. Not unexpectedly William refused to obey any orders and was promptly shipped to Kinmel Park military camp where he was court martial and sentenced to two years hard labour in Wormwood Scrubs. We see a trace of this in monthly report of the Conscientious Objector Information Bureau.

Two months later the Central Tribunal reclassified Williams status to class A, that is a ‘genuine’ conscientious objector after which he was allocated work of so called ‘national importance’. Along with some 50 other CO he repaired roads in and around Clare in Suffolk.

After a week of road mending William was transferred to Dartmoor where in September 1916 we find a trace of him in the form of his signature in an autograph book belonging to Mabel sister and wife of two other COs.