No-Conscription Fellowship

The No-Conscription Fellowship (NCF); British anti-draft organization, founded in 1914 by pacifists Clifford Allen and Fenner Brockway and others. When compulsory registration was enforced in Great Britain in August 1915, the members of the NCF issued a common statement, expressing their determination not to serve in the military or to be involved in war work. When the first Military Service Bill was introduced, the NCF distributed over a million leaflets and organized hundreds of meetings. It had ten thousand members, with branches established all over the country. Prominent people involved with the NCF included Walter Ayles, H. Runham Brown, Bertrand Russell, Henry Hodgkin and Edith Ellis. In 1919, the Conscription Act was repealed and all imprisoned conscientious objectors were gradually released; the NCF disbanded around 1919.