Dyce Work Camp

During World War One, many conscientious objectors were sent to work camps instead of prisons to do work which was regarded as ‘of national importance’. The Military Service Act (1916) introduced this conscription but, it allowed men with a ‘conscientious objection to participating in combatant military service’ on political, moral or religious grounds to apply for exemption from conscription.

The Conscientious .Objector (CO). had to appear in front of a Tribunal and prove to the satisfaction of the Tribunal that he had a conscientious objection. However, the Tribunals were largely biased against the C.Os, seeing them as simply cowards and shirkers. Most C.Os were refused the exemption they sought, and many ended up in prison for failure to enlist, thus being in breach of the Military Service Act.

To make use of this ‘spare’ manpower, the Government set up Work Camps for those C.Os willing to work on non-military tasks, and one such camp was set up at Dyce, in August 1916. Two hundred and fifty men were set to work at a granite quarry, breaking up rocks for road metal. Many of these men were University educated and had never experienced hard manual labour. One man died of pneumonia, contracted as a result of the poor conditions and hard labour.

There was public outcry at these ’able bodied’ men not serving on the front but also complaints by the men over the conditions. The camp was closed after two months, and the men moved elsewhere.

Artist’s Response
I chose the story of the Dyce Work Camp, a story which told of the harrowing experience of the conscientious objectors who were stationed at this work camp in Aberdeen. These were men who refused to go to war due to ill health, political allegiances or religious beliefs. It’s a value that I very much believe in personally,
coming from a political and anti-war background myself.

Throughout the time that these men spent at the camps, they were subjected to harsh weather conditions, long hours of strenuous manual labour and to the derogatory term “conchies” – a shortening of the word conscientious and used as a means of bullying from the press, members of the public and from those in higher places.

Within two days of workshop time, I produced an etching with the ambition of achieving a piece of work that would be a reflection of the circumstances that these men endured. The image etched onto the plate was that of a multiple person seated photograph of the men in front of the grim quarry. Within the process of burnishing and aquatinting I unearthed a patina of marks within the plate’s matrix, marks that map and soften the faces and bodies of the men at the Dyce Work Camp. The title of this piece is “Conchies”, I wanted to use the once derogatory term as a means of empowerment rather than of shame.

Dexter Turriff-Davies
Gray’s School of Art
Robert Gordon’s University

Dexter was born on the 13th of November 1996 in Ninewells Hospital Dundee, raised in the small seaside town of Montrose. He came from a creative family, his great granny was a self-taught painter and his great grandpa was a violinist.

Dexter had an idea of the path that he would take for his own career. He is coming to the end of his 1st year at Gray’s School of Art. Within Dexters practice he employs printmaking to explore the ideas of nostalgia, appropriation and memory as a means of building a narrative through a pseudo – German Expressionist style – inspired by artistic influences such as Frank Auerbach, Max Beckmann, Kathe Kollwitz and William Kentridge.