[18] As the clouds of war gathered in Europe the South London Ecclesia urged a petition for Christadelphians to obtain status as conscientious objectors in 1913, but Walker and other Birmingham brethren had not been convinced of the need.
The Birmingham "Temperance Hall" Ecclesia initially took the view that work as "non-combatants", for example stretcher bearers, was acceptable, but Jannaway strongly urged that this was still participating in the war.
In doing so he succeeded in obtaining signatures from 154 Christadelphian "ecclesias" across Britain, with the notable exception of Temperance Hall, which had already drafted, its own petition of 1,000 members, leaving open the issue of non-combatants, but hesitated to submit it to Parliament.
Although the immediate problem had been resolved by the original source of the teaching, J.J. Andrew, having withdrawn himself in 1901, the Jannaway brothers were instrumental in persuading the influential Birmingham Central Ecclesia, who then met at Temperance Hall, and the then editor of The Christadelphian magazine, C.C.
Walker, to take a stricter line over all those who failed to adopt the 1898 "Amendment" to their statements of faith, leading to the division of ecclesias in North America, and separation from the Unamended Christadelphians, led by Thomas Williams of Chicago.
[22] Then in 1923 F.G. Jannaway created further division when he broke with Walker, his former travelling companion in Palestine, when Birmingham failed to discipline two of their "Arranging Brethren" who had abstained on a vote to "disfellowship" two members serving as special constables.
This coincided with the Jannaway brothers' support for William Smallwood in North America who led the remaining Amended Christadelphians to separate for what would be a period of twenty-nine years (1923–1952).