Vaccination (Arrest of Staff-Quartermaster-Sergeant H. B.Strickley). (Hansard, 16 May 1911)

Mr. POINTER

asked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the case of Staff Quartermaster-Sergeant H. B. Strickley, of the Army Ordnance Corps, at present serving in the Orange Free State, who has been twice placed under arrest, court-martialled, and sentenced to lose five years' seniority, because he refused to have his four children vaccinated, on the ground that they had been certified free from disease and fit to embark for South Africa by Major Boyle, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and also that he had secured exemption orders for each of them under the 1898 and 1907 Vaccination Acts; and whether he will state under what law or regulation this action was taken; (2), whether be is aware that, during the period of arrest of Staff-Quartermaster-Sergeant H. B. Strickley, for refusal to submit to the vaccination of his children, a sentry was placed over his wife and children by the order of the General Officer Commanding, Orange Free State, and that orders were issued that they were not to communicate with other married families, although they were perfectly healthy; whether, on the day following the promulgation of the sentence of the district court-martial, Major Oldfield attended at Strickley's quarters with a vehicle and party to turn the wife and children out; whether it was only to escape that experience that Strickley consented to have the children vaccinated; whether the children were not allowed to attend the military school at Tempe until they were vaccinated; and whether he will say under what law or regulations the 1823 privacy of home life was disturbed by these various acts; and (3), whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a copy of the proceedings of the district court martial at Tempe, on the 8th March, 1911, whereby Staff-Quartermaster-Sergeant H. B. Strickley was deprived of five years' seniority for refusing to have his four children vaccinated?