A chance conversation between Elinor Kelly and Norman Richardson, a leading Quaker in Ross-on-Wye, has led to more than 18 months hard work researching Conscientious Objectors (CO) in Herefordshire, and a new exhibition at Ross Library.

Elinor told the Ross Gazette that Norman’s father was a CO in World War I and he offered to let her read through his father’s papers. William Richardson is pictured far right, and below with his son, Norman.

Elinor said, as she read them she realised that this was a story which needed to be told and that there must be other men in the county, including Ross-on-Wye, who were prepared to suffer a great deal for their principals.

The first fact Elinor discovered was that the government in about 1920 ordered all the records of the COs, and the Military Service Tribunals which decided if they were really men of conscience or cowards and shirkers, to be destroyed. However, Cyril Pearce, an historian from Huddersfield had started work creating a database of 18,500 COs, 55 of whom were from Herefordshire, eight from Ross. And Elinor was able to start to reveal the hidden stories of pacifists from the county.

At the time the COs were very unpopular, often humiliated, and treated as disobedient soldiers. The Quakers were allowed to provide alternative routes to war service, such as the Friends Ambulance Unit. But the men of Ross were not Quakers, five (including four brothers) were Baptists, one was Methodist and another two were ‘Christian’. All were ordinary working men, three builders, one grocer, one waggoner and one fruit farmer. No records have yet been uncovered about how their churches and communities responded to their pacifism.

Three of the men were allowed to remain in their current employment, one was sent to work on a railway, the remaining four were variously arrested, court-martialled, imprisoned and sentenced to hard labour.

There is still a lot more to discover about these men who had the courage to hold on to their religious convictions despite the treatment they endured. Elinor is hoping to discover more about the COs and those who served in the Friends Ambulance Unit before a further exhibition which is planned to coincide with National CO Day in May next year.

On Monday, November 6th two exhibitions are opening in Ross Library’s Dennis Potter Room. The first is a display of banners about the work of Quakers in wartime, with special detail about the Friends Ambulance Unit. The second is a display of posters about Herefordshire’s Conscientious Objectors.