Cockroft, Mary

Cockcroft, Mary (19) Boston St, Sowerby Bridge, Halifax Quaker Meeting member, G Bairstow defending – why was court action brought when she had established her religious objection, unlike for men women had no opportunity to ask tribunal to determine sincerity, earlier appeal v ward maid work at Keighley Hospital dismissed & fined £10 + 10s costs at Keighley Court for refusing to go, now refusing work as probationer nurse at St Luke’s Hospital Bradford, objection not to hospital work but to the compulsion, Halifax Court, 14/10/1942 £20 fine + £2 2s costs or Prison 2 months, wd not pay fine  so went to prison, Yorkshire Evening Post 14/10/42 p8; this case was raised in Parliament by C H Wilson (Labour, Attercliffe) asking if proclamation 23/7/42 limited conscription to single women 20 to 31, Cockcroft not yet 20 & already twice prosecuted, Mr McCorqudale, under secretary at Ministry of Labour, said age limit applied only to Forces conscription not industrial work, in practice COs not given war work & he was looking into the case which was in his constituency, YP 23/10/42 p3, FRI 23/10/42 p596 (brother Arnold Cockcroft , also Halifax Quaker Meeting serving 3 months prison for refusing fire watch, FRI 23/10/42 p596, SEE Y12 Halifax COs file); FRI25/12/42 p747-8 detailed account by Mary Cockcroft of her 2 months, ‘an experience I will never regret and one which if need be , I will willing undergo again’, later married Ken Sheppard also a CO