It was our AGM on 4th July which was followed by a talk from member Debbie Staynes.
Debbie started her talk by showing us a group photograph with the names of the people in the image alongside. She believed the Adult School was held in the Quaker Meeting House in Thornhill Street, Wakefield but said it was difficult to determine which people in the photograph were members of the Adult School and which were Conscientious Objectors; possibly the men were Conscientious Objectors and the women members of the Adult School.
We were then given some information about the Adult School Movement. This was started by Joseph Rowntree Senior who was a Quaker, philanthropist and businessman from York. Almost every member of the Rowntree family were involved as teachers and in other roles. The Adult School used the scriptures to teach reading and writing and had a real interest in the daily lives of the attendees; they were concerned with the well being of the whole person and there were various groups such as a social club, allotment society, a temperance society and a savings bank among others. The Adult School encouraged leisure activities which helped to develop the whole person – spritual, moral and physical.
Debbie then went on to tell us about Cober Hill Guest House near Scarborough. It was purchased by Arnold Rowntree in 1920 and he hoped it would be a centre of inspiration for people. Debbie then showed us an image of a group enjoying a Whitsuntide holiday in 1955 at Cober Hill and she pointed out the various members of her family.
The Conscientious Objectors in the photograph, Debbie told us, were residing in the Work Centre in Wakefield Prison and some of them were frequent visitors to Debbie’s grandma’s home in Quebec Street. She told us that Conscientious Objectors fell into two categories; they objected on political grounds or on religious grounds. Debbie showed us a newspaper cutting from 1916 showing Fred and Arthur Watson being charged with being absentees from the Army; they were exempt from combatant service only. Fred Watson was imprisoned in several jails, including Wakefield. Debbie also showed us later cuttings from 1947 when Fred was denying adultery with a friend’s wife and details of this from her father’s exercise books.
Debbie then told us about a siege which occurred in Quebec Street in 1918 when some people in Wakefield turned against the Conscientious Objectors and decided to attack them. She gave us the details of the siege and told us how her aunts, Nellie and Emily were militant suffragettes and had befriended some of the Conscientious Objectors and how they hid in the cellar of the house in Quebec Street; the sisters wanted to protect their friends, including Fred Watson and Sidney Hines, from the mob. Debbie showed us a plan of the street to illustrate her story. The mob finally fled in confusion after Grandma Staynes had run at the mob with her broomstick when she could no longer bear the fact that her newly cleaned flags and bit of garden were being trampled on.
She also showed us a letter which was printed in the Wakefield Express in 1918 from Joe Leonard Staynes who was doing Red Cross work in France, commenting on the ‘fiendish act of the Wakefield citizens’.
After this event, the Conscientious Objectors were sent, unescorted, by train to Dartmoor and locked in the carriages. Arriving at the station at Dartmoor, no-one was there to greet them; Fred called the prison and they were told to make their own way there! Debbie went on to tell us about Nellie and Emily, how they married Fred Watson and Sidney Hines and what happened to them.
Debbie brought her talk to a close by showing us an image of the blue plaque to Nellie and Emily Staynes at the end of Quebec Street.
Lorraine Simpson
