In May 2023, Northumbria University launched the first, major study of World War II conscientious objectors.

A group formed of almost 60,000 documented UK men – women having had no means by which to formally register – many of them refused to take part in front-line combat on the grounds of their religious beliefs.

Explaining the reasons behind the study, its leader Dr Linsey Robb pointed out that there is often a misconception about the part that conscientious objectors played in World War II.

“Although they objected to fighting,” she said, “many of them still played an active role in both military and civilian roles – for example, ambulance drivers or medics.”

That description very much applies to Alan Russell Dickinson ACA: a man whose story – though ultimately tragic – is nonetheless an inspiring tale of self-sacrifice.

Friends in the trenches

Born in Darlington in 1915, Dickinson was related to Chartered Accountant Sir Arthur Lowes Dickinson who, from 1901 to 1913, was Senior Partner in the US arm of Price, Waterhouse & Co – a predecessor firm of PwC.

Whether or not Sir Arthur’s career had a direct influence is a matter of speculation. But it is clear that Dickinson’s upbringing as a member of the pacifist Society of Friends – more commonly known as Quakers – was instrumental in shaping his character.

First educated at the Friends School at Stramongate, Kendal, Dickinson went on to study at Dalton Hall, Manchester University, in 1932, where he took a Bachelor of Commerce degree. Following that, he studied accountancy through the Institute of Chartered Accountants while he was articled to J.M.S Coates in Newcastle, completing Intermediate and Final exams with honours. In 1938, he became an ACA.

In an echo of Sir Arthur’s path, by the outbreak of World War II Dickinson had settled into a post at the UK division of Price Waterhouse in London – but as Britain entered the conflict, he quickly joined the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU), attached as a volunteer with the 8th British General Hospital.

Set up by a group of Young Friends in August 1914, the FAU was funded by the Quakers and various other donors and, throughout World War I, provided independent, civilian relief in an array of fighting hotspots. Working under the no-nonsense motto ‘Find work that needs doing,’ the FAU grew from an initial training group of 60 young men to 640 on the European mainland and 720 at home by the Great War’s end in 1918.

Mothballed the following year, the unit was immediately revived at the outset of World War II. One of its main aims was to enable conscientious objectors to engage in active, wartime service by providing medical support to Allied troops.

Tour of duty, from snow to sand

Even before his capture by German forces, Dickinson’s wartime itinerary was gruelling.

Affiliated with the Red Cross, the FAU first headed to Northern Europe in January 1940 to assist Finnish troops as they fought Russian invaders during the so-called Winter War. Amid the bleak conditions, FAU volunteers were often required to carve makeshift roads through piles of snow to ferry the wounded to safety. 

On 12 March 1940, the Moscow Peace Treaty brought the 105-day Winter War to an end – but the FAU’s next port of call was not too far away. 

In April, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, and the unit immediately pledged its support to Norwegian forces. However, the venture barely got off the ground. Following a perilous night-time trek into Norway, the convoy was attacked by the Luftwaffe. The scale and violence of the German attack forced the FAU to evacuate to Sweden.

Dickinson spent several months in Sweden waiting for permission from the USSR to cross its borders. During that time, he also worked on an audit of Shell Petrol in Helsinki for Price Waterhouse.  

Once they’d received permission from the USSR for the remaining men of the FAU convoy to cross their territory, 25 of the FAU men, including Dickinson, undertook a rugged and circuitous 13-day journey to Cairo, stopping off in Moscow – the source of the very aggression they had faced in Finland - followed by Kiev, Odessa, Istanbul, Aleppo and Tripoli. Once in Egypt, they linked up with other FAU members and toiled in unforgiving, desert combat zones west of the Nile Delta. 

In March 1941, Dickinson was part of a 20-strong FAU team dispatched by the Red Cross to Greece. Joining a convoy of British troops, the FAU were equipped with 30 ambulances that had been abandoned by the Italians. The splinter group was tasked with helping to deliver medical supplies to Albania – but it never made it.

Soon after arriving in Greece, Dickinson was captured along with 15 colleagues. Held in a seized Kalamata hospital, the FAU men immediately set about remedying its squalid, filthy conditions, as well as washing the other prisoners of war (PoWs) who languished there and re-dressing their wounds.

A fortnight later, Dickinson and his team were dispersed to German prison camps. Dickinson wasn’t repatriated as a non-combatant like most of his FAU colleagues but remained incarcerated. The reasons for this were unknown. 

A conscientious captive

As Dickinson’s circumstances grew ever more challenging, the dogged persistence that had motivated his FAU duties from Northern Europe to North Africa circled back towards his professional interests.

In a previous article on Prisoners of War (PoW) taking exams we explained that a landmark scheme from the Red Cross’s Educational Books Section – involving more than 70 professional societies and academic institutions – sought to maintain the continuity of vocational studies and exams among PoWs scattered in German camps.

On 14 August 1943, a bulletin in industry journal The Accountant announced that Dickinson had received the coveted Sir Ernest Clarke Prize for the quality of his Final for the Chartered Institute of Secretaries. Dickinson had completed the exam in the confines of Stalag XX-A, where he was serving as prison librarian and also lectured on accounting to his fellow prisoners. 

However, he would not live to apply his learnings in civilian life.

In February 1944, The Accountant carried Dickinson’s obituary. His death the previous December at the age of just 28 had followed a long illness. In 2023, For the Fifty – a special report that charted life and loss in World War II for employees of PwC’s predecessor firms – reported Dickinson’s cause of death as sepsis resulting from decubitus, or acute bedsores. He had died in a hospital in Conradstein, Poland.

Quoted in the report, an excerpt of Dickinson’s personal writing encapsulated his selflessness and determination – and his outlook as a conscientious objector:

“I wanted to be in the section of the unit that would have the best opportunities of proving its mettle,” he wrote. “I wanted to live vividly for my ideal – and, if necessary, die for it.”