Magdalen Alumni who served in non-combatant units

The men whose biographies have been set out in previous sections are the Magdalenses who are known to have been conscientious objectors and pacifists. But to discover whether there were any others involves looking at the war records of those men who, if they had not already enlisted or attested, would have been required to join for service with the Colours in early 1916 or 1918. The majority of these men saw military service; a substantial number were exempt either because they were clergymen, or because they were doing work of national importance, or because they were abroad, or because they were unfit for military service. A number served in non-combatant units and may have done so as conscientious objectors or pacifists. It is possible to begin to explore this by looking at men who served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Young Men’s Christian Association, or Red Cross.[1] Some of these may have been pacifists but not conscientious objectors since, according to John Rae: “A man who joined a non-combatant organization, such as the Red Cross or the Friends’ Ambulance Unit, before 1916, was not necessarily required to subject his views to a tribunal when conscription was introduced.”[2] The evidence shows that only one of these five men (Goodyear) may have been a pacifist, and even in that case there is no certainty.

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[1] Excluding those in these units who were too old to have been conscripted (in which case they did not join to avoid conscription) or, in the case of Americans, those who wanted to serve but not to join the British Army.

[2] John Rae, Conscience and Politics: The British Government and the Conscientious Objector to Military Service 1916–1919 (London: OUP, 1970), p. 69.