The objector: From wartime jail to Cabinet minister

Published on Wednesday 10 November 2010 18:07

Contrary to popular belief, only a minority of the cases were appeals by conscientious objectors.

Among the outspoken pacifists was Arthur Woodburn, an engineer's clerk in Edinburgh, who went on to serve as Scottish Secretary from 1947 to 1950.

Woodburn supported the war at first, but in 1916 joined the Independent Labour Party and adopted a strong pacifist stance. He told the appeal tribunal: "I am conscientiously opposed to taking human life, and to taking part in war. I also object on principle to the government or any section of the people attempting to force me into such military service."

He was arrested for making anti-war speeches and undertook hard labour for much of his imprisonment, which lasted until 1919.

He was secretary of the Scottish Labour Party from 1932 to 1939 and MP for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire from 1939 until 1970. He was made a Privy Councillor to the Queen in 1947, the year he joined Clement Atlee's cabinet.

The files are almost all that survives of the many local tribunals that handled appeals throughout Scotland as most were destroyed in 1921.

The appellants were a cross-section of Scottish society, from lawyers and doctors to coal miners and labourers.

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