Harry Farr

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Private Harry Farr (died 16 October 1916) was a British soldier who was executed in 1916 during World War I for cowardice aged 25. He came from Kensington in London and was in the 1st Battalion, the West Yorkshire Regiment.

1 Background
2 Pardon
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Background

Farr joined the British Expeditionary Force in 1914 and fought in the trenches. His position was repeatedly shelled, and in May 1915 he collapsed with strong convulsions. In hospital, his wife Gertrude, who was denied a widow's pension after the war, recalled, “he shook all the time. He couldn't stand the noise of the guns. We got a letter from him, but it was in a stranger's handwriting. He could write perfectly well, but couldn't hold the pen because his hand was shaking.” [1]

It is now thought that Farr was possibly suffering from hypacusis, which occurs when the eardrums are so damaged that the auditory nerve becomes exposed, making loud noises physically unbearable. Despite this, Farr was sent back to the Front and fought at the Somme. After several months of fighting, he requested to see a medical orderly but was refused. [2]

After Farr refused to return to the Front Line, he was sent to a court martial. This lasted only 20 minutes, and some questions have been raised about its competence [3], and Private Farr had to defend himself. General Sir Douglas Haig signed his death warrant and he was shot at dawn on October 16, 1916. His family have always argued that he was suffering from shell shock at the time.

Those soldiers in the firing squad ordered to carry out the execution were often tormented by the experience for the rest of their lives. John Laister, who died in 2006 at the age of 101, recalled how he and a number of others were marched into the woods and told they were to be part of a firing squad. Speaking on the BBC television programme Everyman in 2006, Laister said he was still haunted by the moment that he looked in the direction the rifles were pointed and saw a mere boy stood with his back to a tree. “There were tears in his eyes and tears in mine.” [4]

[edit] Pardon

Harry Farr's widow Gertrude, then living in Kensington, London, was first told her husband had been killed in action, but later when her pension was stopped, she was informed he had been shot for cowardice and she was not entitled to it. Then in 1992 she and her family discovered that some execution papers were being released by the government and that Andrew MacKinlay MP was involved in a campaign for justice for those in similar positions to Farr. Soon they got hold of the court martial papers and were horrified to discover that Farr had been dragged screaming and kicking back to the front, when he sorely needed urgent medical treatment [5].

Despite a sustained campaign, Prime Minister John Major refused a pardon and in 1993 Gertrude Farr died.

However on August 15, 2006 his family announced that Farr was to be granted a pardon [6], as part of a move to pardon up to 306 British soldiers who were shot for cowardice, desertion or other offences in the First World War. The announcement came as Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, said that he would seek a statutory group pardon; ie one achieved through an Act of Parliament for all those executed regardless of the individual merits of the case. Des Browne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that, after 90 years, "the evidence just doesn't exist inside the cases individually" [7]. It has been suggested that the move would avoid numerous court cases. A group pardon would also exonerate those who had been properly found guilty of cowardice. An historian said that of cases in the Royal Norfolk Regiment he had examined there was at least one who had a history of desertion. Historians have criticised such a move in the past as trying to apply modern standards retroactively.

The pardon was enacted in the Armed Forces Act 2006 which came into effect on 8 November 2006. However section 359(4) of the Act states that the pardon "does not affect any conviction or sentence." Since the nature of a pardon is normally to quash a conviction or to commute a sentence, Gerald Howarth MP asked during parliamentary debate: "we are entitled to ask what it does do." ^[1] It would appear to be a symbolic pardon only, and some members of Parliament had called for the convictions to be quashed, although the pardon has still been welcomed by relatives of executed soldiers.^[2]