Lilla Harvey-Smith  was born in Hackney, London, on 8th March 1889 , the daughter of Lizzie Harrison (1856-1909) and the Rev. William Harvey-Smith (1851-1923). At a court case in 1892, William Harvey-Smith declared " I live at Rose Cottage, Stamford Hill, and am President of the General Baptist Assembly " .

Lilla was the 8th of 11 children born to Lizzie Harrison (born 1856, Leicester, Leics.) and William Harvey-Smith (born 1851, Measham, Derbyshire). [See 1901 Census for William Harvey Smith and family - Rose Cottage, High Road, Tottenham, North London]

At the time of the 1911 Census,  Lilla Harvey-Smith was living with at 60 Myddleton Square, London E.C., with her brother Harry Harvey-Smith and two of her unmarried sisters, Violet and Daisy Harvey-Smith (plus 3 cousins and two femaile friends).  On the 1911 census form,  Lilla Harvey-Smith is described as a 22-year-old 'Elementary School Teacher'.

In 1914, at Hayfield, Derbyshire, Lilla Harvey-Smith (1889-1974) married Archibald Fenner Brockway. This union produced four daughters:

Frances Audrey Brockway (1 Sept 1915–1974). Worked as a shorthand typist & librarian for a newspaper. Married Walter Henry James Wood, a "Building Society Accounts Clerk " in Watford Herts in 1936.

Margaret Brockway (20 Feb 1917–1941). In 1939, 22-year-old Margaret Brockway was employed as a School Teacher and living in North Walsham, Norfolk. She died, aged 24, in Tonbridge, Kent.

Joan V Brockway (born 1921–?)  In 1939, 18-year-old Joan V. Brockway was working as a 'Probationer Nurse' at a Children's Sanatorium at High Beech, Waltham Holy Cross, Essex. In 1944, Joan V Brockway married Everett Samuel Pover at Tonbridge, Kent.

Olive F. Brockway (born 1924 -?) married Cecil P Outrim in Tonbridge, Kent, in 1944.

By 1939, Lilla Brockway and (Archibald) Fenner Brockway were living apart. Mrs Lilla Brockway was living in Sevenoaks Road, Sevenoaks, Kent, carrying out "unpaid domestic duties". [a child has been blocked out - probably 15 year old Olive Brockway.]

When the National Register was compiled in 1939, (Archibald) Fenner Brockway was "living in sin" at 10 Neville's Court, Chancery Lane, London, with a 31-year old "Clerical Assistant"  Edith Violet King (born 20th September 1907 - died 1st January 2000, Barnet, Hertfordshire). 

(Archibald) Fenner Brockway  divorced his first wife Lilla in 1945.

Archibald Fenner Brockway married  Edith Violet King, his second wife, in 1946. The couple had a son named Christopher Fenner Brockway who was born at St Pancras, North London, on 24th November 1946.

Lilla Brockway died in Maidstone, Kent, in 1974, aged around 85

The marriage will take place today (Thursday) of Mr A. Fenner Brockway, editor of the Labour Leader, and Miss Lilla Harvey-Smith.

Although conscription may not be so imminent as the Press suggests, it would perhaps be well for men of enlistment age who are not prepared to take the part of a combatant in the war, whatever be the penalty for refusing to band themselves together as we may know our strength. As a preliminary, if men between the years of 18 and 38 who take this view will send their names and addresses to me at the addresses given below a useful record will be at our service.

Whilst there may not be any immediate danger of conscription, nothing is more uncertain than the duration and development of the war, and it would, we think, be as well of men of enlistment age (19 to 38) who are not prepared to take a combatant's part, whatever the penalty for refusing, formed an organisation for mutual counsel and action. Already, in response to personal appeals, a large number of names have been forwarded for registration, and many correspondents have expressed a desire for knowledge of, and fellowship with others who have come to the same determination not to fight. To meet these needs "The No-Conscription Fellowship" has been formed, and we invite men of recruitment age who have decided to refuse to take up arms to join.

To the women of Germany and Austria.

Some of us wish to send you a word at this sad Christmastide… Though our sons are sent to slay each other, and our hearts are torn by the cruelty of this fate, yet through painsupreme we will be true to our common womanhood. We will let no bitterness enter in this tragedy, made sacred by the life-blood of our best, nor mar with hate the heroism of their sacrifice. Though much has been done on all sides you will, as deeply as ourselves, deplore, shall we not steadily refuse to give credence to those false tales so freely told us, each of the other?

Do you not feel with us that the vast slaughter in our opposing armies is a stain on civilisation and Christianity and that still deeper horror is aroused at the thought of those innocent victims, the countless women, children, babes, old and sick, pursued by famine, disease, and death in the devastated areas, both East and West?

Peace on earth is gone, but by renewal of our faith that it still reigns at the heart of things. Christmas should strengthen both you and us and all womanhood to strive for its return.

The National Committee of the No-Conscription Fellowship met in Manchester on Saturday. Mr Clifford Allen and Mr Fenner Brockway reported that a most successful conference had been held in London of the representatives from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a Group of Young Friends, and other bodies…

The membership of the NCF is growing by leaps and bounds, thanks to the advertisement given it by the Morning Post, the Globe, the Daily Dispatch, and other papers. Over 150 full members were enrolled last week. The membership is open to all men of enlistment age who will refuse to bear arms in the event of Conscription, and men above enlistment age, and women supporters are welcomed to associate members. The annual subscription is 1s, and the hon secretary is A. Fenner Brockway, Maple Bridge, via Stockport.

The chairman made mention of the same of one to whom, he said, the first idea of the NCF was due – Lilla Brockway, whose name was greeted with tremendous applause.

I would like to thank you for your kindness to Fenner. I know you don't want my thanks but I want you to know how thankful I am, that you were with him at the time when he most needed sympathy.

I know that your words will have been of great help and comfort to him, and I think it must have been worth all the pain and disappointment, to have had such close correspondence with you.

I would clearly love to visit India. I know there are terrible evils and sufferings there, but I know too, that there are wonderful, beautiful souls and the deep spiritual calm for which my own soul longs, in the stupid civilised (?) country of ours.

On the grounds of the misconduct of her husband Mr Archibald Fenner Brockway, political secretary of the Independent Labour Party, Mrs Lilla Brockway of Hosey Hill, Westerham, Kent, was granted a decree nisi by Justice Hodson in the Divorce Court, London, today. The suit was not defended.

Mrs Brockway's case was that the marriage, which took place in 1914 was very happy until 1929. Then she noticed a change in her husband's attitude to her. She became deaf at that time, and it irritated him to have to shout to make her hear. He was then general secretary of the ILP. He confessed that he had been unfaithful to her, but she forgave him. Later he went on a lecture tour to America and he informed her that he was in love with another woman. He asked her to divorce him but she replied that she could not as it would break the hearts of their three children.

Mrs Brockway's case was that the marriage was happy until 1929, when she noticed a change in her husband's attitude to her. He was then general secretary of the ILP and he confessed that he had been unfaithful to her, but she forgave him.

It was Lilla Brockway who had the idea that led to the formation of the No Conscription Fellowship in World War One.

Lilla was a student at Eltham Training College, spending her holidays with a number of others in an ILP household headed by her brother Alfred Harvey-Smith, where she met and later married Fenner Brockway. They were living in a cottage in Marple, Derbyshire when war began.

‘Lilla Brockway…was the first to feel that the time had come to gather together all those in the Socialist and other movements who would refuse to be driven to the murder of their fellows if conscription came.' In response to her idea Fenner suggested she should write a letter to the Labour Leader (he felt it would be improper for him to do so as he was the Editor) towards the end of 1914, asking ‘all who were determined not to fight to send in their names, so that common action might be taken if and when conscription came.'

‘In response to that call there came replies from every part of the country - from little fishing villages in Cornwall and from far north of Scotland; from agricultural districts as well as from the big cities came letters which showed that not everybody had succumbed to the madness of war. The greater part of the replies were from members of the Independent Labour Party; among the rest were members of the Society of Friends, and a few were from members of other religious bodies. In her home at Marple, Lilla Brockway collected the names in a file, and she and her husband waited for the time when that handful of young men would be called upon to resist the State's demands that they should take up arms. They did not have long to wait…'

Lilla became the honorary Secretary of the organisation that became the NCF, until early in 1915 when an office was opened in London to handle the growing membership. The Brockways moved to London, where Fenner became the NCF secretary, renting a room in Bryanston Square, with the baby sleeping in a drawer. Lilla and the baby were evicted from this room after the police came to arrest Fenner as a CO in November 1916.

Fenner was taken to the Tower of London. From there he was escorted to Euston, en route for Chester, and he asked if his wife could join them for lunch, which was allowed. She told Fenner she was coming with him to stay with a friend until his court-martial, and by the time they reached Chester they were all good friends with the Fenner's military escort, to the extent that they insisted on escorting Lilla to her lodgings first. On the way back to prison in London from Chester, where she had visited him daily until his court martial, she was allowed to travel with them. During his sentence she was only able to visit him once, with their 18 month old daughter Audrey. By the end of his sentence he heard that his second daughter Margaret was born in Manchester. On release, COs were still officially part of the army so he was to be escorted back to Chester. He asked to go via Manchester to see his wife and baby and the friendly escort took the risk of allowing him to go the nursing home on his own!

At one point during another term in prison, a rumour spread outside that Fenner had TB - Lilla and Catherine Marshall from the NCF had immediately been to see the secretary of the Prison Commission, then Catherine had organised the Bishop of Lincoln to lead a deputation to the Governor, and the local shop stewards at the Lincoln engineering works stopped work to visit the prison and check on him.

‘Often I think that our wives had a harder time than those of us who were prisoners; they had to live in the middle of a war-mad world and to undergo the contumely which opposition to the war and relationship to an imprisoned "conchy" involved. Lilla did it with unfailing courage, living for many months in a bare caravan, looking after Audrey and Margaret, mere babies, going through the last eight months with only one letter from me.'

Lilla Brockway prompted her husband Fenner Brockway to place a letter in the Labour Leader (which he edited) inviting responses from men of enlistment age who would refuse to be combatants. 300 replies arrived by return. According to Brockway, the response was ‘so immediate and the earnestness of the writers so moving that it at once became clear that there was a need for a fellowship in which the prospective resisters might unite.'

The No-Conscription Fellowship (NCF) was launched, initially operating out of the Brockways' home. As membership grew – it eventually reached around 10,000 – the NCF shifted headquarters to London. Supporters and members included well-known pacifists and war resisters such as philosopher Bertrand Russell.

Some members, such as Harold Bing, formed local branches, so creating a support network that stretched around Britain.

Fenner Brockway wrote that membership "extended beyond absolute pacifists" and included "Socialists, Anarchists, Quakers, and other religious objectors".

As conscription approached, the NCF spearheaded a tremendous anti-conscription campaign, including distributing more than a million leaflets.

When, in August 1915, compulsory registration was introduced, the NCF stated that, while respecting the courage of soldiers, it and its members ‘bound by deep conscientious conviction' would resist conscription, whatever the consequences.

When conscription was finally introduced in 1916, the NCF became the hub and voice of the conscientious objection movement, within which 16,000 men, most if not all of them members of the NCF, took their stand as COs, experiencing abuse, ostracism, prison and great hardship as a result.

From the first, the NCF was more than just a personal objection to military service on grounds of conscience; it was also a profoundly political organisation. The NCF challenged the state by consistently refusing to accept the state's right to force men into military service.

According to David Boulton, author of Objection Overruled, with conscription the NCF "fashioned itself into the most efficient instrument the British peace movement ever had, before or since." Its organisation was remarkable: it kept meticulous records of every conscientious objector in the country, with details of their statements, tribunal hearings, treatment, imprisonment and so on. Duplicate records were kept as a safeguard against police raids.

NCF members attended tribunals, supported the families of COs and maintained up-to-date information about what was happening to objectors. When, in May 1916, groups of objectors were taken in secret to France, to be threated with execution, it was the NCF who were the first to know, passing information straight to the government. And, from March 1916, the NCF published a weekly journal, The Tribunal, which, despite constant police surveillance and raids, was published until January 1920.

As NCF officials were imprisoned, their places were filled by reserves, many of them women whose support for COs and war resisters is often overlooked. Several had been active in the women's suffrage movement and were not only skilled organisers but also highly experienced in evading police surveillance. They included Catherine Marshall, Violet Tillard (who was imprisoned for 61 days for refusing to tell the police the name of the NCF printers), Jean Beauchamp (who served two prison terms), and Lydia Smith who worked in the press department.

By and large, the NCF took an absolutist line, refusing to compromise with the 1916 Military Service Act in any way. Many members, including Brockway and Clifford Allen, served repeated terms of imprisonment, some suffering severe physical hardship.

However, when the NCF held its final convention in November 1919, which was attended by more than 400 delegates from all over the country, Allen paid tribute to all COs, absolutists, alternativists, those in the Non-Combat Corps and those who had accepted what was known as the Home Office Scheme.

In a long and moving speech, he spelled out the great achievement of the NCF and its conscientious objector membership, namely that they had ‘shattered the infallibility of militarism.'