Coulson Kernahan's Appeal

Before conscription was introduced in 1916 recruiting rallies were held almost daily in an effort to get every available man to the Front. This report in the Eastbourne Gazette on 16th June 1915, concerns the well known author Coulson Kernahan and his efforts to get men to look within themselves and consider what it will be like when the war finally ends.

Patriot and Author

Mr. Coulson Kernahans Appeal

In his speech at the Wish Tower grounds on Saturday, Mr. Coulson Kernahan (the well known author) said:-

“May I just tell of a saying of Robert Louis Stevenson, whose books are known to some of you? Stevenson said this :-

“Much may be forgiven to us mortals – mistakes, sins, crimes even: but God Himself cannot forgive the ‘hanger-back’”.

“Is there a hanger-back here today? Is there one man here who is fit and able to go but is hanging back? If so, I am sorry for him. I sit in judgement on no man. In all my recruiting work I have never called any man a ‘shirker’. I have no right to call you a shirker. You may be fit and strong. I don’t know you circumstances. I repeat: I sit in judgement on no man. Your own conscience will be worse than anything I can say. To feel that other people sneer at you is a small matter: but for a man to feel that he has lost his own self-respect and is a coward in his own eyes is terrible. Picture the coming time when as Mr. Gwynne says we shall be happier than we are today. The war is over, Eastbourne is en fete. Every man, woman and child is out. The bells are ringing, the flags are flying and the gallant boys of the Sussex Regiment are marching down the street having returned unhurt or bearing honourable wounds. We shall be mad with joy – men, women and children. Picture to yourself what your position will be if you might have gone but did not. You won’t be with the cheering crowd. You will be slinking home by the back way. You will feel you might have gone, but let others go. You will see George that went and Harry who went. They heard the call and obeyed it. You will slink home to the kitchen amongst the cats, the children, and the old women, because you have been a shirker. You will know that you have betrayed your country. Don’t let that become true of you. Say today, 'I will do my duty. I have been a long time over it. It is not too late. It shall be my privilege to serve my country.'”

(Coulson Kernahan (1858-1943) was born at Ilfracombe, Devonshire, and educated privately by his father and at St Albans School. He was associated with Locker-Lampson on a new edition of Lyra Elegantiarum, contributed to many periodicals, wrote humorous verse, and gained wide popularity for his fiction, some of which has been translated into French, German, Dutch, Hungarian, and Chinese).