from Steven

 I was listening last night to “The Rebellion of the Basement Lecturers: the Wandsworth Prison Disturbances of 1918-19” by Steve Illingworth 2 June, 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZdrkN7qOV8 54:53 52 views 

It is a weekly presentation at the Working Class Movement Library which is live at 2pm BST Wednesdays where one can see and chat with the others on Zoom.. There are recordings of many presentations on their Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/wcmlibrary/videos

Future presentations are at  https://wcml.org.uk/events/

They were “absolutists” who refused conscription after 1916 and would not do non-combative duties or essential work in Britain. They were mostly well educated prisoners who were socialists and rebelled for the right to talk to each other and to write letters to each other and home. Previously they had only been allowed to send one form later every three months to their next of kin. They were subject to “cat and mouse” imprisonment, like the suffragettes in that they would be court-martialled for refusing to wear military uniform and usually sentenced to six months, but then would be immediately conscripted again and reconvicted. Some women, probably including suffragettes did weekly singing outside the prison to boost their morale. 

15 took part in a hunger strike. They smashed the spy holes and the ventilation shafts so they could give lectures through the ventilation system and sing songs. The results were far reaching throughout the prison system as most continued activism after they were released. 

Neville Chamberlain served on conscientious objectors' tribunals and Winston Churchill took over as Secretary of State for War in April 1919 and took a more pragmatic approach and released all those who had served two years immediately. This made it easier to gain exemption from conscription in the Second World War as religious objections were more clearly protected. 

Some time after the rebellion prisoners earned an end to the rule of silence and restrictions on the use of solitary confinement and the provision of lectures, books and concerts in prisons.