Refusing to Fight the “Good War” : Conscientious objectors in the North East of England

This book explores the difficulties experienced by objectors in the Armed Forces and those who worked on the land, and also considers women who objected to compulsion extended to them for the first time.

Histories of the Second World War have paid scant attention to either conscientious objectors or the North-East of England. This book fills a gap in the historiography by looking beyond the region’s industrial significance during this period and exploring social, moral and religious attitudes to the war – both on the part of objectors, and those who dealt with them. As a regional case study, it also sheds light on wider structures and attitudes relating to conscientious objection in Britain during the war, providing an in-depth understanding of the profile of objectors, the working of a tribunal, and the response of the authorities, public and media to conscientious objection. The book explores the difficulties experienced by objectors in the Armed Forces and those who worked on the land, and also considers women who objected to compulsion extended to them for the first time. For many objectors the cells of Durham Prison or Northallerton Detention Centre were to be their temporary home, and the conditions there are examined. The Second World War became a moment of transition in the treatment of conscientious objectors, between the excesses of the First World War and its current recognition as a basic human right. This was a transition in which objectors in the North-East of England played a significant role, both in their local and in the national context.