A new exhibition will highlight the difficult choices faced by Macclesfield families and the community during the First World War.

War and Conscience: Choices Then and Now 1916-2016 will look back one hundred years to when posters went up in Macclesfield and surrounding villages warning men they would be conscripted into the Armed Forces on March 2 1916.

Through posters, photographs, original testimonies and first-hand accounts, the exhibition underlines similarly difficult decisions in today’s world of conflicts.

Celia Davies, of East Cheshire Quakers, the group organising the exhibition, said: “People may be surprised how unpopular Conscription was, not just among the public, but within military ranks.

“Hundreds of Macclesfield men presented themselves at the Town Hall at tribunals on the grounds they were of more use in their employment at home; farmers, clerks, clog-makers and even a tripe-seller, and sought exemption from war service.” Conscientious Objectors attended the tribunals too. The exhibition is at Macclesfield Library from February 16 to February 27.