The Memorial Plaque to Private H. Haston, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment, a...

The Memorial Plaque to Private H. Haston, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment, a Conscientious Objector who was arrested and sent to Princetown Work Centre, Dartmoor, where he died of pneumonia on 25 October 1918 Memorial Plaque (Henry Haston) lightly polished, very fine £200-£240 --- Henry Haston was born in Stonebroom, Derbyshire, in 1892, and was a coal miner by trade. A practicing Primitive Methodist, he held a religious objection to war; as an absolutist Conscientious Objector he rejected his local Tribunal’s verdict that his Conscientious Objection warranted exemption from combatant service only. Despite being a coal miner, and therefore relatively safe from conscription, he was finally conscripted into the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment in July 1918. Sent to the Derby depot, he was soon in trouble for refusing to obey orders. Faced with a court martial, he was sentenced to two years hard labour in prison and sent to Wormwood Scrubs. Arriving at Wormwood Scrubs soon after his court martial, Henry was brought before the Central Tribunal. Conscientious Objectors from all around England were brought to the Scrubs during their first prison sentence from late 1916 onwards, with the intention that the Tribunal could hear their case and decide each Conscientious Objector’s suitability for the new compromise between Absolutist and Government - the Home Office Scheme. A Conscientious Objector judged suitable and willing to accept the terms laid out could be passed to a Home Office Scheme camp, where, in exchange for undertaking work for the government, they would be granted better conditions and marginally more freedom. Haston was judged to be a “CO class A” man, making him eligible for the Home Office Scheme and he agreed to be sent to Dartmoor work camp. Arriving in September, he would have found conditions poor and the Conscientious Objector population gripped by an epidemic of pneumonia. He died of pneumonia only a few weeks later, on 25 October 1918, leaving a widow with a five week old child. His coffin was carried from prison to the railway station by fellow Conscientious Objectors, only to be disrupted by locals around Dartmoor who threw a barrage of stones. When his body was returned to Stonebroom for burial, it was a different reception and his funeral was attended and paid for by his colleagues in both the mine and Sunday School. Today he is buried under a CWGC headstone in Shirland (St. leonard) Churchyard, Derbyshire. Sold with copied research.