Comrades in Conscience
The story of an English community's opposition to the Great War
by Cyril Pearce
Francis Boutle Publishers
ISBN 1 903427 06 1
Paperback 369 pages
Price per copy including postage: UK £15 Worldwide: £18
The book
Comrades in Conscience is a groundbreaking study of opposition to the First World War in one locality – Huddersfield – where a unique consensus of Nonconformist Liberals and a vigorous labour and socialist movement earned it the reputation of being 'a hotbed of pacifism'. Using local sources, including the weekly socialist newspaper The Worker, the records of anti-conscription organisations, as well as the testimonies of conscientious objectors themselves, Cyril Pearce portrays a community largely unenthusiastic about the war and tolerant of those who resisted it, and goes on to question widely-held assumptions about the popularity of the First World War.
The author
Cyril Pearce was born in Huddersfield and has lived and worked in Yorkshire for most of his life. He is a lecturer at the University of Leeds and lives with his wife Heather in Golcar.
