May 15th is Conscientious Objectors’ Day, when Quakers, and Peace Campaigners remember the men who refused to take up arms.
One such man was Roland Caudwell ( 1880-1982). He will be remembered by some in Abingdon as the retired builder who lived at 52 Thesiger Road. He will be remembered by others as a Deacon at Abingdon Baptist Church. There are earlier pictures of him serving as a soldier in the Boar War where he looked after the horses. But during World War I, he had become a man of conscience who refused to fight or kill, and is listed as a Conscientious Objector.
In 1916 he was Clerk of the Abingdon Quaker meeting. Like many Quakers (or Friends) he held pacifist beliefs. He was exempted Military Service at a tribunal in July 1916 not only on grounds of conscience but also because he was a farmer – a reserved occupation.
Mr Caudwell reached the grand age of 101, and there are reports of him as a centenarian in the Abingdon Herald. The reports say that he made hundreds of blankets for Oxfam.
As usual Backstreeter, you never cease to amaze !
My father was a conscientious objector in WW2; he looked after Italian POWs and kept contact with many of them until he died in 1997…
A different kind of bravery. My uncle (his brother) fought on conscientious grounds. They remained friends!
Many conscientious objectors worked as stretcher bearers during the Great War – I can think of no braver thing to do.
Thank goodness there were only a few conscientious objectors or Hitler would have marched into the Uk. I was told he had plans of concentration camps for British men and all the Jews.
Just been talking with my 93 year old Aunt who remembers the WW2 objectors well, (two brothers who i wont name)
Apparently they were made to stand on the street corners with a book of some sort? she also remembers the Cauldwell chap, farmers in Drayton.
My father was also a conscientious objector in WW2. He spent the war in the National Fire Service and worked in London during the Blitz. Later he was transferred to Coventry during the time that city was bombed.
Sounds like a grand chap Roland Caudwell.
If there had been a lot more like him on both sides there wouldn’t have been a war at all!
My granddad, too, fought in the BOER War and received 14 leg wounds.
I was delighted to find this when searching online. Roland Caudwell was my grandfather, and I have been wondering whether he was a conscientious objector, or whether he got automatic exemption through being a farmer. I learnt today that many farmers were called up, so it looks as if exemption wasn’t automatic. As an extra piece of information, Roland was brought up in the Church of England, his father Eli being a churchwarden in Blewbury, so he may still have been CofE when he served in the Boer war. I know from Quaker records he was already clerk of Abingdon Quaker meeting in 1905.