Tom Marner

Chadderton Tribunal 6 December 1916
Reported Oldham Standard 7 December 1916

The Chadderton Tribunal met on Wednesday night …

… The Tribunal had another "C.O." before them later on - Tom Marner, a spinner, aged 33 and married, of 89 Cambridge-street.

He had been recommended to join the V.T.C. when exempted on trade grounds and he now wrote that he had not done so and that he could not see his way to doing so. He believed the V.T.C. to be part of the military system and therefore membership would be repugnant to his conscience. When he was last before the Tribunal, he was told that as he was in a reserved trade it would only be wasting time to press his appeal on conscientious grounds. So he agreed to stand on his trade appeal, reserving his conscientious appeal until such time as it might be necessary to prefer it. He was now working at the Hartford Mill, Oldham.

The Chairman: Will you join the Special Police or the St John Ambulance Brigade?
Marner wanted to know whether he would have to take any oath of allegiance if he joined the S.J.A.B., for taking of any such oath would be contrary to the oath which he had taken to Christ.

Captain Taylor: I don't think you will be required to take any oath that will injure your conscience. You will simply have to give an undertaking to obey the rules and conditions laid down by the brigade. It's not joining the R.A.M.C. you know to join the S.J.A.B.
The Chairman: We insist that a man exempted on conscience grounds must do something of national service that is not contrary to his conscience and we don't think such a man ought to refuse to do such work.

The man agreed to do ambulance work and was then given conditional exemption.

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Born Oldham, 28 March 1883
Died Oldham, 10 January 1977

1911 census
25 Stafford Street, Werneth, Oldham
With wife Louisa and brothers Harold and Granville Marner
Occ: Operative cotton spinner

1939 register
1 Shaw Road, Oldham
With wife Louisa and son Tom Marner b 1916.
Occ: Wholesale & retail leather and [?] merchant

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His brother Granville Marner died of influenza 5 November 1918 and is buried in Skopje Military Cemetery, Macedonia.
Army Service Corps 688th M.T. Company. Reg. no. M2/099992

Contributed by Dorothy Bintley