A Court Martial for a Conscientious Objector.

Not everybody could reconcile their faith with ‘serving their country’. This report from the Eastbourne Gazette on 18th October 1916 concerns Mr. Gerald Whichelo, who was an assistant at a boy’s school.

Mr Whichelo obviously had very high principals, but perhaps lacked a measure of ‘common sense’. A dose of humility might have helped his case with the members of the Tribunals.


“Court Martial

Schoolmaster as Conscientious Objector

One of the most persistent of conscientious objectors is Gerald Ross Whichelo, a gentlemanly looking, black haired man about 25 years of age. He was formerly an assistant at a boys school in Eastbourne carried on by an ultra-patriotic principal. Relinquishing his scholastic work Mr. Whichelo went to work on a farm at Weybridge in Surrey. When he appeared before the Eastbourne Tribunal some of the members were rather displeased by the high-flown language in which he declared himself a Christian opposed to “totemism”- a word which many people are unprepared to define.

A District Court Martial was held at Stoughton Barracks, Guildford, the depot of the Queen’s (Royal West Surrey) Regiment, on Thursday, when Mr. Whichelo was charged with refusing to obey the command of his superior officer to undress for medical inspection at the Barracks on September 23. He pleaded guilty.

In his defence the accused said his position was due to the scandalous administration of the Military Service Acts by the Tribunals of Eastbourne and East Sussex. Although the concession of non-combatant service more or less acknowledged his objection to warfare he could not reconcile the Sermon on the Mount with being a member of an organisation whose sole purpose was the destruction of his fellow Christians. He had asked for exemption on condition that he undertook work of national importance but the East Sussex Appeal Tribunal dismissed his application. He then obtained work on the land and applied for the variation of his certificate, but the application was dismissed with the result that he appeared there a day as a prisoner, to the permanent disgrace of the British Law of liberty and justice. He was not a soldier before the eyes of God, and in view of all the circumstances he asked to be released and allowed to continue his civil work.

Prisoner was found guilty and the sentence will be known in due course.”