This brief article comes from the Nottingham Evening Post and highlights a Quaker war tax resister in England at a time when such resistance was relatively rare:
Income Tax Refused.
Will Not “Pay Tribute to War Chests.”
Furniture belonging to Miss Esther Marie Kitching, of New Barnet
(Herts.), a sister of
the late Commissioner Kitching, of the Salvation Army, has been distrained
upon for income tax, and will be sold at Barnet on
.
Miss Kitching, a worker for the Society of Friends, sent a cheque to the
Inland Revenue authorities equal to
8s.
3½d. in the £ of the
amount demanded from her in income tax. She declined to pay the balance,
stating that 11s.
8½d. in the £ of tax
went for war purposes. “It would ill become a missionary in the cause of
peace,” she said in an interview, “to pay tribute to war chests.”
I haven’t been able to find out much more about Kitching. There are occasional mentions of her in Quaker publications that touch on some of the work she was doing with the Society of Friends, but none that I found say anything about her war tax resistance. Here’s a second article that’s a little more expansive, from the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette of :
Objection to War Taxes
Willing to Go to Prison If Necessary
Miss Esther M. Kitching, of Shaftesbury Avenue, New Barnet, a sister of the late Commissioner Kitching of the Salvation Army, has sent to the income-tax authorities an amount equal to 1s. 3½d. in the £ of the amount due from her in income-tax.
In an accompanying letter she stated that she will decline to pay the remainder as this represents the proportion used for war purposes.
In an interview she said that she was determined not to pay, and would let the law take its course.
“Imprisonment,” she said, “has no terror for me. Most of my time is spent on behalf of the Society of Friends, preaching disarmament, and it would ill become a missionary in the cause of peace to pay tribute to war chests.
“My conscience rebels against such a tribute, and if tens of thousands of taxpayers were to take the course I have adopted disarmament would soon be achieved.”
I found a reference at the Hull History Centre to a letter in their archives from Gerald Bailey of the National Peace Council/Congress to Winifred Holtby in which Kitching’s war tax resistance is discussed, as are Holtby’s intentions to follow suit. (I haven’t found any evidence that Holtby resisted her taxes, and she died within a few years of the letter.)
