Bristol Radical History Group has just published ‘Ring Out The Thousand Wars Of Old’, the story of the Forest of Dean’s World War 1 conscientious objectors.
During World War One, 28 men from the Forest of Dean sought recognition as conscientious objectors rather than be called up to fight. This is the story of these men, the options available to them, the way they responded and what they did after the war. Ring Out the Thousand Wars of Old explores the role that religion, class, culture and place had on these individual decisions. It argues that the actions of the conscientious objectors were an expression of a much wider anti-war sentiment, reflecting increasing war weariness as casualties mounted and opposition to conscription grew.
After four months in Bristol Cathedral, the exhibition ‘Refusing To Kill – Bristol’s World War 1 Conscientious Objectors‘ has moved next door to the Central Library. It will be on display there until February 2nd.
Alongside most of the material displayed in the Cathedral, we have added new exhibits. Some of our own, plus books and documents provided by Library staff from their own collections. We have a new photograph of Bristol COs held at Knutsford in 1918, a letter describing a serious attack on COs at Knutsford and a recently discovered letter from Mabel Tothill describing the work she and her colleagues were doing in 1918 to support Bristol COs.
If you haven’t seen the exhibition already, then get down to the Library before February 2nd. If you visited it in the Cathedral, you’ll still see learn more from a visit to the Library.
While the exhibition was in the Cathedral it was visited by thousands of people. Some already knew something about COs; to others it was a complete revelation. Almost all were overwhelmingly positive and appreciative of the display.
For more information email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com
Date: Tuesday 2nd January 2018, Two performances at 13.15 & 15.30 Venue: Bristol Cathedral, College Green, BS1 5TJ Pianist: Steven Kings Soprano: Heather Ashford No booking required No admission charge but there will be a collection at each performance. It will be possible to view the Refusing To Kill exhibition before both performances. Additional material about Frank Merrick wil be added to the exhibition for the occasion. The exhibition continues in Bristol Cathedral until January 8th. It will then transfer to the Central Library for several weeks.
Visitors to the Refusing To Kill exhibition in Bristol Cathedral will have learnt about Frank Merrick and even heard his voice. With the support and involvement of Frank’s family we are now pleased to present a performance of some of his music. Frank Merrick was 31 when he was arrested as an absentee from the Army in 1917. His conscientious objection was founded upon moral and political beliefs and was demonstrated by the fact that as a longstanding vegetarian he refused to kill a single living being. An absolutist conscientious objector, he spent his war in prison. Born in Clifton, Frank was initially home educated. His talent as a pianist was soon noticed and he studied under Leschetizky in Vienna. In 1911 he went to teach at what was then the Royal Manchester College of Music where he became Professor of Music. Before the war he had been politically active in the fight for women to get the vote and had become a vegetarian, demonstrating a keen sense of social justice. In prison he managed to do a little composing (one of his Wormwood Scrubs pieces features in this concert) and he ‘practiced’ piano by pretending to play on a flat surface or pillow placed on his lap. Eventually freed on 24th April 1919, Frank returned to the College in Manchester, later teaching at the Royal College of Music in London. In the 1960s he came back to Clifton, celebrating the 75th anniversary of his first public recital with a concert at the Victoria Rooms. In recognition of his work the University of Bristol awarded him a Masters in Music. In 1978 he was made CBE. He died in 1981 at the age of 94. Maintaining his links with Bristol, his family lodged his papers with the University of Bristol. Several recordings of Frank’s performances were released on vinyl during his lifetime – a collection of these will, we hope, be reissued on CD in 2018.
Steven Kings
Steven Kings trained in piano and composition at St John’s College Cambridge and the Guildhall School of Music. He has performed around the country as soloist, accompanist and chamber musician, with a wide solo repertoire ranging from Scarlatti to Ligeti. He is a regular performer in Bristol, where he lives. Steven Kings on Frank Merrick: “Frank Merrick’s music is lyrical and inventive, tonal in style but with some unusual chromaticism and harmonic colourings.” For more information email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com
The Conchie by Arthur W. Gay. By permission of the Peace Museum, Bradford.
The exhibition “Refusing To Kill – Bristol’s World War 1 Conscientious Objectors” continues at Bristol Cathedral until January 8th. See here for details. During its first two months, thousands of people have come to learn about the 350 men from the Bristol area who, for moral. religious and political reasons, refused to fight in World War 1.
On Saturday December 2nd, as part of a series of events linked to the exhibition, Revd. Dr. Clive Barrett will give a talk in the Cathedral titled “The Conscientious Would Not Go – Christian Resistance to War, 1914-18‘
100 years ago thousands of men were arrested in Britain because of their refusal for moral, religious or political reasons to fight in World War 1. Many were imprisoned. Some of them, including members of the Church of England, refused on the basis of their faith. They believed it was wrong for them, as Christians, to fight. Clive Barrett explores some of these stories and looks at how they can inspire us to stand for peace today. The talk begins at 1.30pm in the Chapter House.
The Revd. Dr. Clive Barrett belongs to the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship and chairs the Peace Museum in Bradford, Yorkshire. His book ‘Subversive Peacemakers – War Resistance 1914-18, An Anglican Perspective‘ was published in 2014.
For more information email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com
On November 11th, Armistice Day, nearly 100 years after the First World war ended, we traditionally mourn the British and allied dead. In fact, the war was a tragedy for all the peoples who took part and we should mourn all those who died.
In Britain, the remembrance ceremonies are accompanied by military parades which glamorise war. By implication, the sacrifices of previous generations are presented as an example to be followed by the present generation in the next war. This is a powerful and abiding idea, deep in the British psyche. In modern Europe with nations at peace with each other since 1945, this seems completely inappropriate and dangerous. There were people on both sides who opposed the war at the time and said it was a waste of human life and resources. This November 11th, Remembering The Real World War 1 brings you three talks telling the little-known story of some of those Germans who opposed war between 1914 and 1933.
Karl Liebknecht speaking at an anti-war rally – November 1918
Making a stand: German opposition to World War One
Speaker: Ingrid Sharpe During and after the First World War, ‘German’ and ‘Germany’ became bywords for militarism and a hundred years later commemoration of the First World War centenary can sometimes give the impression that the war was accepted without opposition in Germany, and that the First World War was fought without any dissenting German voices. This talk will look beyond German militarism at the various forms of anti-war resistance practiced by German citizens, including those conscripted into the German army. Before the war, there were social, political and religious forces against militarism that were largely suppressed but not destroyed by military censorship. The terrible experience of war also created new opposition among the scientists, politicians and soldiers who participated in it and a small but determined minority within the organised women’s movement formed international links across enemy lines to speak out against the war and to influence the peace processes.
Ingrid Sharpeis Professor of German Cultural and Gender History at the University of Leeds, with a particular research emphasis on the First World War and Weimar Germany. She leads the Resistance to War strand of the Legacies of War project and her interests include resistance to war by groups and individuals, especially within the organised women’s movement.She leads a project on women’s role in the German Revolution of November 1918 that will lead to a new play to be performed in the UK and Germany in 2018 war resistance, gender, women’s groups, commemoration and the German Revolution 1918.
Mutinying German Servicemen – October 1918
How to stop a war: The German servicemen’s revolt of 1918 Speaker: Roger Ball of Bristol Radical History Group The German revolution of 1918-20 and its violent suppression is a little known event in the British popular memory. Where it is described the narrative typically commences with the mutiny of sailors from the German High Seas fleet over the first few days of November 1918. However, the numerous actions against the continuation of the war by hundreds of thousands of German soldiers on the western front during the preceding summer, have been exposed in recent years through the work of historian Nick Howard. Drawing extensively on the research and writings of Howard, this talk exposes the scale and content of this resistance, which developed from refusals, desertion and mutiny to the formation of Soldiers’ Councils, the organisational cells of the revolution that followed. It also charts the extraordinary events in ‘occupied’ Belgium where, in the autumn of 1918, nationalist war transformed into internationalist civil war.
Demonstration In Bavaria 1919
Remembering my father: from the Bavarian workers rising of 1918 to resisting the rise of the Nazis. Speaker: Merilyn Moos Merilyn will tell the story of her father, Siegfried Moos, who was involved in key political events in Germany between 1918 and 1933 – from the defeat of the Bavarian revolutuion of 1918/9 by the anti-Communist Freikorps, Siegfried recognised the danger the early Nazi party formed and was deeply involved in the almost forgotten resistance to the Nazis pre-1933. He was active in a number of organisations associated with the German Communist Party, such as the Red Front who opposed the Nazis on the streets, sports organisations, humanist clubs and of course agit-prop theatre. Unlike many of his comrades, Siegfried lived to fight another day, leaving Germany in 1933 to live in the UK. Merilyn Moos was born in Oxford to Siegfried Moos and Lotte Moos, anti-Nazi activists and communists from Germany, who escaped from Hitler’s regime to England in 1933. Merilyn’s book Beaten but not Defeated (Zero Books, 2014) is a biography about her father and the story of his early life and the trauma of the loss of his family that he was reluctant to share with his children. For more information on this event email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com
To find the Cube: http://www.cubecinema.com/pages/about/directions/ As part of a series of events looking at World War 1 from a German perspective, we are very pleased to provide a rare chance to see what has been acclaimed as ‘one of the greatest anti-war films’. Made in 1930 by the acclaimed German director Georg Pabst, this sub-titled version is screened thanks to the support of the Goethe-Institut. The screening will be introduced by Humberto Perez-Blanco, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at UWE. Westfront 1918 was made at the same time as the Hollywood production of All Quiet on the Western Front but with a bleaker tone consistent with Pabst’s earlier films. It was particularly pioneering in its early use of sound—it was Pabst’s first “talkie”—with Pabst managing to record live audio during complex tracking shots through the trenches. Westfront 1918was a critical success when it was released, although it was often shown in truncated form. With the rise of the Nazis, the film quickly became considered by the German authorities as ‘unsuitable’, notably for its obvious pacifism, and for its clear denunciation of war. This was an attitude that propaganda ministerJoseph Goebbels would label as “cowardly defeatism”. “One of the greatest anti-war films of the twentieth century” Louder than War website
“The banned classic of international solidarity” Senses of Cinema film journal
Come to see this widely acclaimed one-man play about World War 1 conscientious objectors
When: FRIDAY 27th OCTOBER, 19.00-21.00 (Doors Open 18.30) Where: BRISTOL CATHEDRAL, COLLEGE GREEN, BS1 5TJ Presented by REMEMBERING THE REAL WORLD WAR 1 to accompany the REFUSING TO KILL exhibition
Seats are limited and must be booked. Tickets £5 (plus small booking fee) – www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/this-evil-thing-tickets-37000717141 January 1916. Bertrand Russell is one of the greatest mathematicians of his time. Bert Brocklesby is a young schoolteacher and Methodist preacher. When military conscription is brought in, their worlds are turned upside down. THIS EVIL THING is the compelling and inspiring story of the men who said no to war. From a chapel in Yorkshire to the House of Commons, from a cell in Richmond Castle to a firing squad in France, the questions raised here are as relevant and urgent as they were 100 years ago. Michael Mears, ‘the award-winning master of the one-man show’ (The List) portrays conscientious objectors and a host of other characters with breath-taking physical and vocal dexterity, in this highly original piece of storytelling – partly using verbatim testimonies, while interacting with a multi-layered sound landscape and vivid visual imagery. Michael’s previous solo plays – Soup, about homelessness, and Tomorrow We Do The Sky – won critical acclaim and a Scotsman Fringe First Award. He has also written and performed five specially commissioned solo plays for BBC Radio 4. ‘Michael Mears is that rare combination of fine writer and formidable actor.’ Bonnie Greer, Time Out Directed by Rosamunde Hutt Sound design by Mark Noble Set design by Mark Friend Lighting design by Zoe Spurr Produced in association with Room One (roomone.com) www.facebook.com/thisevilthing For more information email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com
From Saturday September 9th, the Remembering The Real World War 1 group are presenting an exhibition ‘Refusing To Kill – Bristol’s World War 1 Conscientious Objectors‘ in Bristol Cathedral on College Green. The exhibition will run until early January. Over 350 men from the Bristol area refused to fight in World War 1. They claimed the status of conscientious objector for moral, religious or political reasons. Some agreed to take non-military roles. Others spent much of the war in prison, often under harsh conditions. A largely untold part of Bristol’s World War 1 history – this exhibition tells the stories of these men and the people in the city who supported them. Rarely seen documents will be displayed together with photographs, letters from COs and artefacts. The exhibition will look at Why Conscription Was Introduced; What was a CO; Attitudes to COs – from government, churches, military, public; Local Networks Of Support; and the Long Term Effect of WW1 COs up to present day. You can help publicise the exhibition by liking/sharing the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/RefusingtoKillBristolWW1COs/ There are printed flyers. If you know of anywhere they can be used please email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com For Cathedral opening times see https://bristol-cathedral.co.uk/visit-us/opening-hours/ Alongside the exhibition there will be a series of talks, drama and musical events. Details of these will be available soon. For more information email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com
British Soldiers ‘Going Over the Top’ At The Battle Of The Somme
Apologies for postponement from last month. The event details are now:
Date: Mon 3rd July, 2017
Time: 8:00 pm
Venue: The Cube, Dove Street South, Bristol, BS2 8JD
Price: £5/£4
Map & Directions: http://www.cubecinema.com/about/directions/
Tickets can be booked on the Cube website at
http://www.cubecinema.com/programme/event/the-somme-1916-from-both-sides-of-the-wire,9377/
This BBC series, shown last year, used original research in German military archives to look at long-standing assumptions and prevailing myths about the what happened in the most iconic battle of the First World War. We are showing the final programme, End Game which questions the broadly accepted idea that the Somme campaign was the ‘decisive victory’, British Commander in Chief Douglas Haig claimed it to be. It examines the revealingly different military cultures of the British and Germany armies, not just in terms of their contrasting tactics but in their attitudes to military discipline, showing how the British executed more than ten times as many deserters as the Germans.
The film will be introduced by Michael Poole, its executive producer, who recently retired from the BBC. He was the executive producer and often the initiator of an impressive list of arts and documentary programmes including ‘Empire of the Tsars’, ‘Being the Brontes’ and the long running ‘Timeshift’ series.
For more information email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com
British Soldiers ‘Going Over the Top’ At The Battle Of The Somme
PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT IS UNAVOIDABLY POSTPONED FROM JUNE 5TH.
THE NEW DATE IS PROBABLY JULY 3RD. FULL DETAILS WILL BE POSTED HERE SOON.
Any queries please email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com
Date: Mon 5th Jun, 2017
Time: 8:00 pm
Venue: The Cube, Dove Street South, Bristol, BS2 8JD
Price: £4/£3
Map & Directions: http://www.cubecinema.com/about/directions/
This BBC series, shown last year, used original research in German military archives to look at long-standing assumptions and prevailing myths about the what happened in the most iconic battle of the First World War. We are showing the final programme, End Game which questions the broadly accepted idea that the Somme campaign was the ‘decisive victory’, British Commander in Chief Douglas Haig claimed it to be. It examines the revealingly different military cultures of the British and Germany armies, not just in terms of their contrasting tactics but in their attitudes to military discipline, showing how the British executed more than ten times as many deserters as the Germans.
The film will be introduced by Michael Poole, its executive producer, who recently retired from the BBC. He was the executive producer and often the initiator of an impressive list of arts and documentary programmes including ‘Empire of the Tsars’, ‘Being the Brontes’ and the long running ‘Timeshift’ series.
For more information email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com
