WW1 at Goldsmiths: a place where the seeds of radicalism and humanity were sown

A POEM has come to light which sees an unknown Goldsmiths student or staff member  defending the rights of conscientious objectors during the First World War. 

Written by a contributor known only as EW, the poem was published in the July 1916 edition of the official college newsletter The Goldsmithian. 

“The Conscientious Objector” 

 

Led by a light mysterious

A light that ye could not see – 

Oh brothers, scorn not your brother, 

Because he saw not as ye! 

 

Because, when ye saw your duty

In a clear path, straight ahead, 

And took it and held it nobly, 

And hold it – living or dead – 

 

He would not join your triumph

Nor heed his country’s crisis, 

But in place of the honour they gave you 

Read doubt in his dear one’s eyes. 

 

Doubt grew to dark suspicion, 

And, hardest to be borne, 

From those who failed to understand, 

Contempt and pitiless scorn. 

 

“Fool” we called him, and “Coward,”

Perhaps it is all his due, 

But no word of ours can swerve him

From the things he holds as true. 

 

Unpitied, unloved, unhated. 

He holds to his course alone, 

Do we know if it leads to right or wrong

When we see no path but our own?

 

His light may be an illusion – 

Can we say, since we do not see? 

But – brothers, judge not our brother, 

Who believes, but believes not as we. 

 

 

E.W. 

As many across Britain prepare to make Armistice Day, the 99-year-old work is praised as a “powerful and beautiful” expression of the enquiring nature of Goldsmiths from its very beginnings. 

The poem was discovered by members of the Special Collections & Archives team who are currently working on a project to digitise editions of The Goldsmithian. 

This work sits alongside a number of projects investigating Goldsmiths during the First World War, such as history students seeking out the stories of the 109 staff and students who lost their lives during the conflict – a toll which included our first Warden, William Loring. 

Professor Tim Crook, Head of Radio in the Department of Media and Communications here examines the work: 

“I think the ‘Conscientious Objector’ poem is a powerful and beautiful expression of the way Goldsmiths and universities in a democratic society raise the controversial questions and generate the radical thinking that in the end lends compassion, understanding and humanitarian values to all the things that can go horribly wrong in human society.

“This is an acorn of the oak tree of knowledge and critical questioning Goldsmiths would later become. 

“We have to consider that this poem, written by an anonymous ‘R. W.’ was being published in the official magazine of a college whose staff and students were being slaughtered and maimed in the industrial global warfare of the Great War.

“Goldsmiths was mourning the horrible death of its 50 year-old Warden William Loring who died from ‘gas gangrene’ following the amputation of a leg that had been smashed by a sniper’s bullet at Gallipoli at the end of 1915.

“Great Britain had run out of men who had already volunteered in their millions. Now service for King, Country and Empire was being made compulsory through national conscription; something that had never happened before in British history.

“The Military Service Bill was passed into law in January 1916 and the tensions arising resulted in about 16,000 people registering as ‘Conscientious Objectors’ or ‘Conchies’ to use the pejorative term bandied about in popular media and culture for them.

“They became pariahs and it was rare for the tribunals deciding on what to do with them or public opinion to do anything but condemn that as ‘cowards.’

“However, the term implied an objection to war on the grounds of conscience and this could be religious pacifism, humanism, political activism, and those who simply did not believe in the war and the way the state was not giving them any choice in the matter.

“The tribunals could operate like Kangaroo courts, but the fact that they existed with an appeals system offered a legal process of review. Those who failed to convince the tribunal faced imprisonment- including a teenager who was told that you can’t have a conscience when you are 18.

“The poem recognises everything that faced the conscientious objector: ‘Contempt, pitiless scorn’, ‘Fool’ we called him and ‘Coward’. 

The poem is subtle, empathetic and I would say politically artistic. In the final stanza ‘EW.’ writes:

“His light may be an illusion –
Can we say, since we do not see?
But – brothers, judge not our brother,
Who believes, but believes not as we.”

This is a call for toleration, an expression of profound doubt and ethical insecurity, and a glorious recognition of political, religious and intellectual courage.