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 | |
| JOSEPH CRICK 1891 - |
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| A member of the Wandsworth NCF and a grocer, Joseph Crick was a committed opponent of Conscription long before it was imposed in 1916 by the Military Service Act. He would have been one of the first Conscientious Objectors in the area to go before a Tribunal, which must have rejected his application for exemption, as by April 1916 he had been arrested, fined and turned over to the control of the Army. Being one of the earliest COs to be put unwillingly under army discipline, in his case with the Queen's Regiment, Joseph was not transferred to civil prison after disobeying orders. Instead, he was put under army detention for 84 days following court martial. Army detention could be notoriously harsh and conditions were likely very poor. On his release from detention in September, Joseph would have found conditions slightly different, and by the 18th he was again Court Martialled for refusing to become an obedient soldier. This time sentenced to 112 days in a civilian prison, Joseph began a cycle of sentencing, release and rearrest that was shared with most other Absolutist COs. Perhaps his time in military detention made him less likely to form any compromise with military authority as, after a short time at Dyce Camp, he would reject the offer of the Home Office Scheme and willingly return to prison. Though the conditions in Winchester prison that he returned to were punitive and repressive, perhaps Joseph believed they were worth it to avoid agreeing to the "rules" laid down by the Home Office Scheme - that asked COs to accept that they were officially reservist soldiers. Joseph was finally released from Norwich prison in April 1919, his sentences finally quashed by the "two year rule" which allowed the release of any CO who had spent more than two years in prison. By the end of his time defying the military service act, Joseph had served four separate sentences for the same "crime" - a pointless and difficult to endure cycle that punished COs for rejecting war.
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