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| AD1 10/407/3, Archives New Zealand, Wellington Office |
This image from
Archives New Zealand shows the moment when some of the
14 conscientious objectors aboard the troopship
Waitemata were taken up on deck to have their hair cut, and forced into uniforms. In July 1917 the objectors, including
Mark Briggs and
Archibald Baxter, had been smuggled out of Terrace Gaol in Wellington under secrecy, placed into a bare 22- by 10-foot (6.7- by 3-metre) cabin, and shipped to the Western Front. Briggs, a socialist, resisted the cutting of his hair and had to be dragged ‘his heels
rattling and bumping on the stairs first going up, then coming down.’ He
managed to jerk his head around to resist the hair-cutting, so his
cropped hair became covered with red marks from his own blood.
More about Briggs and the 14 can be found at
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/video/mark-briggs-great-war-story.
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