Henry Horace Peacock was a Letter sorter living in North London when conscription was introduced in 1916. Joining the Post Office at 18, he worked as a Postman for 12 years before marrying and he and his wife, Daisy, lived in Finsbury Park. Soon after, he was promoted to Letter Sorter and worked in the Northern District Post Office.

Henry was a deeply religious man and worked in the Albany Mission on Hornsey Road. His Christian faith led him to believe that war was wrong and that he could not play any role in the First World War. He also believed that nothing could make him to disobey his religion and that the government, even in a time of crisis, had no right to force him to betray his religious principles. With opinions like these when conscription was introduced forcing all British men between 18 and 41 into the army, it was inevitable that Henry would become a Conscientious Objector.

Unlike many other COs, Henry had other reasons for resisting the compulsion to join the army. He had been forced to give up his work at the Albany mission on doctors orders, making him medically unfit for the army. He was also, in the early months of 1916 employed on work considered to be nationally important in his role as a Letter Sorter.

Henry decided to apply to his local tribunal without telling them that he had medical and employment reasons for refusing to join the army. In fact, he said nothing about either at his Tribunal hearing in Hornsey on the 26th of September 1916! For Henry, the only important reason he could be exempted from the army was on the grounds of his Conscientious Objection. He argued that “the first duty of man is to love God” and that that meant he was committed to resisting “any form of military service” as they did “not allow any conviction to take precedence to military orders”. Henry had made a brave choice - in making his application on grounds of his conscience he was more likely to be dismissed, but adding in the other reasons he could be exempted did not occur to him.

Nevertheless, these conditions ensured that he was initially given exemption based on his work at the Post Office, which kept him out of the army until March 1917.Unfortunately, his work at the Post Office was soon considered unimportant as increasing pressure was put on Post Office workers to join the army. His exemption was removed, and he was ordered to report to Mill Hill barracks in April 1917. As an “Absolutist” CO, Henry was determined that he would not work for the military either in a combatant or non-combatant role. This stance would soon land him in serious trouble.

At Mill Hill Henry’s struggle against conscription and militarism really began. After arriving at the barracks on the 24th, Henry soon found himself in the Guard Room as a consequence of his absolute refusal to obey military orders. In the Guard Room, he met many other CO’s each imprisoned for refusing orders - to pick up arms, put on a uniform, or sign documents. Enough COs were in Mill Hill at the time that they could form a meeting group which reported to the organisations that supported Conscientious Objectors during the war, especially the No Conscription Fellowship or NCF. Many COs were proud to have been part of the NCF Mill Hill branch!

As a result of his courageous stand against militarism at Mill Hill, Henry was sentenced to hard labour at Wormwood Scrubs, but soon found himself before another Tribunal hearing. This was the Central Tribunal, meeting to determine which COs were “genuine” and which were not. Ironically, after nearly a full year of applying to Tribunals to gain recognition as a Conscientious Objector, the Central Tribunal placed him in category “A” - acknowledging that his beliefs were deeply held and that he would always resist any form of militarism.

Henry, and thousands of other COs in a similar situation, would be given the option of leaving prison for Work Camps organised under the Home Office Scheme. These camps were intended to put COs to useful work, but instead many found themselves doing backbreaking, pointless labour under harsh punitive conditions in what amounted to forced labour camps. Henry was sent to Dartmoor camp where he spent the rest of the war. He may have worked in quarrying, farming or stone working, and wherever he worked he would have been in the company of hundreds of other men just as determined as he was to state their Conscientious Objection to military service.

Henry’s story shows that it is possible for ordinary people to resist militarism even in very difficult situations. Henry was not an unusual man or an exception to a rule, but someone who made a difficult and very brave choice to work against war. As a pacifist and a Conscientious Objector his resistance helped to fulfill his aim - in his own words to “eliminate the horror and misery of war”.