Catalogue description Central Military Service Tribunal and Middlesex Appeal Tribunal : Minutes and Papers

In October 1915 local military service tribunals were appointed by local authorities under the instructions of the Local Government Board and the Scottish Office to consider the postponement of the calling up for military service of voluntarily attested men. They were part of the administrative provisions to co-ordinate military service requirements with those of civil departments and vital industries. In November a Central Tribunal was set up as a final committee to which the recommendations of local tribunals in cases involving occupational rather than personal grounds were to be forwarded for final decision and to which in other cases appeals could be made against the decisions of local tribunals.

After the passing of the Military Service Act 1916, which introduced compulsory military service, the local tribunals and the central tribunal were made statutory bodies, and intermediate tribunals called appeal tribunals were set up in counties or combinations of counties to divert the bulk of appeals from the Central Tribunal; appeal to the Central Tribunal existed only by leave of the appeal tribunals. Members of the Central Tribunal and the appeal tribunals were appointed by the crown.

The tribunals were bound by regulations issued under the Military Service Acts by the Local Government Board, and the Central Tribunal received the assistance of staff of the board and of the registrar general. The Central Tribunal also acted as an advisory body to the Army Council respecting men who had been sentenced by court martial to terms of imprisonment for breach of military discipline, and who pleaded a conscientious objection to undertaking combatant or non-combatant service as a reason for their refusal to obey military orders.

The Central Tribunal ceased to meet as a body on January 1919, but its life was prolonged to enable its members to fulfil the duty imposed on them by the Representation of the People Act 1918 of issuing certificates in appropriate cases to exempt conscientious objectors from loss of voting rights for a period of five years after the war.