ROBERTS, Thomas (Tom)

Family Name:

Roberts

Given Names:

Thomas (Tom)

Gender:

Male

Birth-Date:

1897

Death-Date:

Unknown

Marital Status:

Single

Age

14 years old

Location:

VIC, Brighton

Occupation:

Possibly school student

Primary Motivation:

Conscientious objector, pacifist -religious

Reason for Court Appearance:

[1] Failure to register for compulsory military training and refusal to drill

[2] Refusal to obey military orders

Court Name and Location:

[1] Magistrates Court, Melbourne

[2] Military Court, Queenscliff

Court Hearing Date:

[1] June 1914

[2] June 1914

Court Outcome:

[1] Convicted and sentenced to prison for 21 days

[2] Convicted and sentenced to 7 days solitary confinement

Military Event:

Boy Conscription 1911-1929

Further Information:

Thomas Roberts was the son of a Quaker working-class family of eight from Brighton in Victoria. His father was Frederick and mother Susanna. Tom attended a Baptist Sunday school for many years because the Quaker Meeting House was too far away from his home. The quakers are commonly referred to as one of the historic peace churches. Tom was a pacifist and opposed to all war and military conscription. No doubt these beliefs were shared by his parents

Tom refused on conscientious grounds to register for compulsory military training. Towards the end of 1913 Tom should have been in his third year of military training, but he had done none. He was summonsed to court. His father wrote to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence asking he be allowed to serve his son’s term of imprisonment. His mother wrote to the Prime Minister stating her son was innocent and that she and her husband had absolutely forbidden him to take part in this anti-Christian militarism. She informed him that Tom was a sick boy and had nursed him through what she called typhoid fever. She added he was not fit for the rough and brutal treatment metered out to lads in military prison. This was to no avail. Tom was given a chance to make up the 64 hours of drill he had refused to undertake. The 16-year-old Tom was convicted and sentenced to 21 days in June 1914. The authorities ordered him to do signaling. Tom refused to cooperate in any way. A military court ordered him to undertake 7 days solitary confinement. Tom wrote a letter to his parents which said, I am not going to do anything as I know you would sooner me not, but you wouldn’t tell me so. If not I wouldn’t do any for not for not being treated decently. He closed the letter with 25 kisses.

At the time of his solitary confinement, he was in poor health. The Queenscliff isolation cells consisted of a free-standing, weatherboard and iron building, divided into three rooms. There was no aperture in the front and no spy-holes in the doors. Boys who were incarcerated there suffered extremes of heat and cold depending on the weather. His father at the Melbourne Trades Hall Council protest meeting held on 11 June 1914 described his sons treatment as ‘inhuman’ and worse than for criminals. When his father and mother visited Queenscliff the military authorities refused to show them where Tom was kept for solitary confinement. Tom was adamant it contained no window; the authorities claimed it did. At the same meeting John Curtin of the Woodworkers Union described Toms incarceration as, monstrous that a lad 16 years of age should have spent seven days in solitary confinement.

Tom’s case attracted more public attention than most. One reason was that it followed closely on the incarceration of Harry Flintoff. Another reason was that the parents of Thomas making the facts of this harsh treatment publicly known. Under pressure from Senator Rae, the Prime Minister Joseph Cook and Defence Minister Senator Millen promised to amend the Defence Act to prevent further punishments involving solitary confinement. An amendment was made in April 1915 but did not address the situation and probably was not intended to do that. It merely stated that confinement in a military detention room would not exceed a period of twenty days. As Bobbie Oliver has observed, It is both ironic and tragic that, while the failure of the conscription referenda in 1916 and 1917 released grown men from the prospect of imprisonment if they did not enlist, under the law, boys could still endure solitary confinement for refusing to undergo military training. Tom completed his solitary confinement and the rest of his sentence and was afterwards left alone by the Department of Defence.

For those on the side of peace and non violence and opposition to war and military conscription this case illustrates a dark chapter in Australian history.

Confirmatory Sources:

John Barrett, Australian and “Boy Conscription” 1911-1915: Falling In. Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1979, pp.105, 188-192, 197, 206 and 246.

Bobbie Oliver, Peacemongers: Conscientious objectors to military service in Australia 1911-1945, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1997, pp. 24, 27 and 28.

Argus, 12 June 1914 p.10; 18 June p.9.