‘The Conchie’

Gay, Arthur Wilson; The Conchie; Peace Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/the-conchie-21680

‘The Conchie’ (1931) by Arthur Gay. On display at the Bradford Peace Museum. Image: Art UK

The painting, ‘The Conchie’, by the painter, Arthur Gay (1901 – 1958), was first exhibited in 1931 to a sympathetic public reception. A decade earlier this would not have been the case.

Background

In 1916, with the Great War raging unabated and the number of volunteers drying-up, the British Government introduced military conscription.  The Military Service Act compelled men, aged 18 to 41(later extended to 51 years) to serve in the British Army for the duration of the war, unless they were exempt for reasons including being widowed with children, medically unfit, or in work deemed essential to the survival of the country. 

Most who received their call-up papers went straight into military service, compelled by a mix of patriotism, sense of communal duty – and fear of being accused of cowardice.  But many appealed against their conscription. 

Military Tribunals were established across Britain to decide on cases where men had applied for exemption from army service.  Between 1916-18, over 90,000 men presented cases for exemption, mainly on the grounds of employment vital to the war effort, or because of their domestic responsibilities.

However, over 16,000 men also claimed exemption from military service on the grounds of conscientious objection. Their claims included Christian and other religious belief in pacifism, and a range of social, moral and political objections to war. But very few men presenting conscientious objections were granted full exemption and many accepted non-combatant roles in the services, e.g. ambulance drivers, or in civilian war work.

But over 6,000 men refused to accept any non-combatant role on the grounds that it would support a war they opposed. They were inevitably ordered into military service and their refusal to obey order led to periods of imprisonment, usually with hard labour.  Some were even condemned to death if they refused an order given to them at the front line, although all had their death sentences commuted to imprisonment. Most conscientious objectors stayed in prison until 1919 and lost their right to vote until 1929.

These men became known as ‘conchies’; a pejorative term first coined by soldiers, but quickly adopted by a public and British press largely hostile to them.  The conscientious objectors experienced great hardship, sometimes brutality, in prison or the work camps, and over 70 died because of the harsh treatment they received.

The public hostility toward conscientious objectors was still raw in the early aftermath of war. But this began to abate from the late 1920s onward, largely because of the more open and considered public discussion on the causes and social impact of the  war.  ‘The Conchie’ is a reflection of this changing mood in the country at that time.

The Painting

‘The Conchie’ is an oil painting, measuring 69 x 84 cm, on public display at The Peace Museum, Bradford, in West Yorkshire. 

It depicts three men: two uniformed soldiers and one other. The fading light of day falls on the face of the civilian as he looks at the passing scene. The depiction of the rifle, the open bible on the man’s lap, and the title of the painting, suggests that the civilian is a conscientious objector on his way into military custody.  

The triangulation of form in the painting draws your eyes to the prisoner. The soldier on the right stares – rather fixedly and unnaturally – at his colleague, who in turn looks toward the captive.  The prisoner looks away from the soldiers, his face highlighted by the last of the sun, contrasting with the soldiers in shadow.  He has turned away from reading his bible to look at the receding buildings of the town.

The symbolism is writ large, particularly the contrast between bible and the rifle.  Also, the day – and the man’s freedom – are temporarily ending. In this, the artist too, may be recalling the words of the poem, ‘For the Fallen ‘, written in 1914 by Robert Laurence Binyon:  At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them”.

The Moral Questions

The stand taken by conscientious objectors continues to raise moral questions today. Were the objectors the truly brave ones for their opposition to war despite the hostility heaped on them? Or were their temporary experiences in custody as nothing, in the overall scheme of things, compared to the eternity of death for millions of their contemporaries on the battlefields? For as Binyon also wrote about the dead, “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.”

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See also the profile of George Demaine, the Keighley artist imprisoned between 1916 – 1919 for his conscientious objections to war.

See also Bradford Artists – and War

 

 

 

 

 

 

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