JOHN SAMUEL BAKER

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JOHN SAMUEL BAKER (1890 – ?)

John Samuel Baker, who served with the Friends’ Ambulance Unit in 1914 at Dunkirk, was living with his brother Ernest James Baker, also a conscientious objector,  at 92 Langham Road, Tottenham, on 9 March 1916 when he came before the Tottenham Tribunal. They were two of the four the children of Emily Elizabeth Baker who had been widowed when her children were very young. The family had moved up from Hackney to Tottenham at some time around the turn of the century. John had been working as a clerk in 1911, and by 1916 he was book keeper with Fuller & Richards, wholesale stationers in Windmill Street, Soho. He gave his reasons for applying for absolute exemption from military service on grounds that; his belief ‘that to take part in War, either by striving to kill or bodily injure my brother men, or be assisting others to do so, is an offence against God’, his opinion that the stationery business was of ‘vital national importance’ and thirdly on grounds of health, because he had a ‘small & weak chest, weak heart & generally poor physique’.

He supported his case with a copy of a pamphlet To Christ’s Disciples Everywhere,  by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, of which he was a member, and with three letters from people who each testified that he had always been opposed to war, though they did not share his views. Amongst these was his employer who was himself a ‘long standing volunteer’. John’s claim was turned down by the Tottenham Tribunal on the grounds that they were not convinced of his views and he was sent for a medical examination at Mill Hill.

John appealed, saying that the proceedings at the Tribunal were ‘characterised by indecent haste’ and that the ‘five minutes of cross examination’ mainly consisted of bible quotations from some members of the Tribunal who were ‘seeking to prove…that Jesus Christ was a consistent advocate of force & the use of armaments’. We don’t have all the documents relating to his case but it seems that at some point it was suggested that he should join a ‘searchlight party’, this was presumably a form of Non-Combatant work as John rejects this on the grounds that he would be under Military Control. He asks to be referred to the Pelham Committee to find work of national importance or for ‘discussion’ at the Central Tribunal. He is refused leave to appeal to the Central Tribunal and there his case ends, though we also know that, having been examined by the Medical Board in April he is declared ‘Fit for Service at Home’.

He was arrested and handed over to the Mill Hill barracks on 31 May 1916 for enlistment faced a court martial on 9 June and sentenced to six months  hard labour in Canterbury Prison. His case came before the Central Tribunal which referred him to the Home Office Scheme on 4 August 1916.

We know nothing more of him, though it seems he may have been among the men photographed at the work camp at Dyce, outside Aberdeen. From this we can presume that he must at some point have been arrested and then sent under the Home Office scheme to Dyce the conscientious objectors’ work camp, which was opened in mid 1916 for stone-breaking. The camp was closed in October 1916 after only a few months when one of the men died having experienced appalling conditions. What happened to John after that we don’t yet know but hope to find out.

We know nothing more about him either after the war. A John Samuel Baker married an Amelia Dickson in Islington in 1922. Could that have been him? At present we can’t be sure.

PR/IWM

Joanna Bornat