No-Conscription Fellowship Collected Records

The No-Conscription Fellowship began in the autumn of 1914 when A. Fenner Brockway, at the suggestion of his wife, wrote a letter inviting all who were prepared personally to resist conscription to communicate with him; this letter was published in the Labour Leader and by Nov. 1914, the NCF was launched. The 300 or so original members elected the first committee, which included Brockway, Clifford Allen (Lord Allen of Hurtwood) and C.H. Norman. In the early days, the cottage of the Brockways was the Fellowship's headquarters, with his wife doing nearly all of the secretarial work. By early 1915, however, the membership had grown so large that it was necessary to open an office in London, where Allen was largely responsible for the NCF's organization and activities. When compulsory registration was enforced in Aug. 1915, the members of the NCF issued a common statement, expressing their determination not to serve in the military or to be involved in war work. When the first Military Service Bill was introduced, the NCF distributed over a million leaflets and organized hundreds of meetings. It had ten thousand members, with branches established all over the country. Prominent people involved with the NCF included Walter Ayles, H. Runham Brown, Bertrand Russell, Henry Hodgkin and Edith Ellis.

During the three year period when conscription was enforced in Great Britain, the NCF was the only organization which presented an unceasing and unequivocal opposition to the war. It worked in cooperation with the Independent Labour Party, the Society of Friends, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and other pacifist groups. It maintained contact with the hundreds of men who resisted conscription, many of whom had been arrested and imprisoned, and frequently arranged for their defense in court, provided for their dependents in cases of need, and sponsored through sympathetic M.P.s the discussion, in the House of Commons, of the COs' treatment in the prisons and camps. The NCF earned a national reputation, and with its highlighting of the position and treatment of the COs it created sufficiently fertile ground for the No More War Movement in 1921. Many of the leaders of the NCF went on to positions of national leadership, some in Parliament.

In 1919, the Conscription Act was repealed and all imprisoned COs were gradually released. The final convention of the NCF was held in Nov. 1919, at which time it was decided to disband, leaving three committees to carry on various aspects of the NCF's mission (the Anti-Conscription Committee, the Pacifist Committee, and the Committee to Oppose Military Training in Schools); these ceased to exist within a year or two.