CARL BECK

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Carl BECK

Carl was a bank clerk, the elder of two sons of a pharmacist, Albert Beck and his wife Elizabeth; the family  lived at 43 Mount Pleasant Villas in Stroud Green, Hornsey. In 1916 he was 26 years old and a Christian with, as he said, an “absolute conviction that war is contrary to the teachings of Christ.”

Accordingly, on 18^th March 1916, he made an application to Hornsey Tribunal claiming absolute exemption from military service.  Hornsey refused his application with the words “Appellant appeared, as in other cases, to be reciting a lesson which he had got off by heart” and claimed that it was not a personal conviction.

Carl appealed to the Middlesex Tribunal who did grant him conditional exemption conditional upon his obtaining work with the YMCA to work with the troops.   We know he was referred to the Pelham Committee for placement, but there the trail ends for now.

National Archives/MH47