Conscientous Objector graffiti from WW1

[Guest Pete Wood]

Go to the English Heritage website at the moment and the default page is some graffiti by a conscientous objector, named Percy F(awcett) Goldsbrough.

The citation at http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/default.asp reads:

This Graffiti on a cell wall [Richmond Castle] was made by Percy F. Goldsbrough, a conscientous objector in 1916. The castle was used to house such prisoners during the First World War.

Dramatically situated high on a rocky promontory, the castle’s formidable keep looks over the River Swale and the rooftops of the market town of Richmond. Originally built by the Normans to control the north, the castle’s past as a fortress, barracks and prison is explored in an exciting exhibition, ‘Castle, Commerce and Conscience’.

Photo © English Heritage Photo Library

'I Percy F Goldsbrough of Mirfield was brought up from Pontefract on Friday August 11 1916 and put in this cell for refusing to be made into a soldier'.

Percy was born in 1897, in Dewsbury, Yorkshire. If anyone has more details on him....

[BeppoSapone]

Go to the English Heritage website at the moment and the default page is some graffiti by a conscientous objector, named Percy F(awcett) Goldsbrough.

The citation at http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/default.asp reads:

This Graffiti on a cell wall [Richmond Castle] was made by Percy F. Goldsbrough, a conscientous objector in 1916. The castle was used to house such prisoners during the First World War.

Dramatically situated high on a rocky promontory, the castle’s formidable keep looks over the River Swale and the rooftops of the market town of Richmond. Originally built by the Normans to control the north, the castle’s past as a fortress, barracks and prison is explored in an exciting exhibition, ‘Castle, Commerce and Conscience’.

Photo © English Heritage Photo Library

'I Percy F Goldsbrough of Mirfield was brought up from Pontefract on Friday August 11 1916 and put in this cell for refusing to be made into a soldier'.

Percy was born in 1897, in Dewsbury, Yorkshire. If anyone has more details on him....

If anyone is in London, and can visit the Society of Friends Library in the Euston Road, they could find out more.

During WW1 the SOF, aka Quakers, had a "Visitation of Prisoners Committee" which took care of the welfare of COs. Each CO had a sheet, and these are filed in alphabetical order, and can be viewed. They contain just basic information such as the home address and which prisons the man had been in.

This library also holds some papers on the Friends Ambulance Unit, which include individual sheets, complete with a photo of the person in question. These papers include those of some teenaged boy scouts (IIRC only 14 or 15 years old) who went out to France to help the FAU early in the war.