David Hewitt looks at a sad & maddening case from a hundred years ago
The Central Tribunal sat many times during the Great War. It had to decide whether men who were not soldiers should now be required to fight and its decisions certainly affected a great many lives. But the tribunal didn’t always do justice.
At the beginning of 1917, “Joseph” was told that he could remain at home, at least for the time being. He was given an exemption from military service by a committee of councillors in Thornton, the small town near Blackpool where he lived. But although the committee was satisfied that Joseph was a market gardener and therefore essential to the war effort, its decision soon came under fierce attack.
The Central Tribunal was the final arbiter in matters of this kind. It sat in far away Westminster and was led by the fourth Marquess of Salisbury, whose father had been Prime Minister three times and the last man to lead his government from the House of Lords. A soldier before he became a statesman, the marquess
