thumb|Cigarette card depicting Wheatley

John Wheatley (19 May 1869 – 12 May 1930) was a Scottish socialist politician. He was a prominent figure of the Red Clydeside era.

Early life

Wheatley was born to Thomas and Johanna Wheatley in Bonmahon, County Waterford, Ireland. In 1876 the family moved to Bargeddie, near Baillieston, Lanarkshire in Scotland. His father found work as a miner in the local coalfield, however his family lived in grinding poverty, with him, his parents and his seven brothers and sisters living in a single room cottage without drainage or running water. Wheatley did well at school, but at the age of 11, he joined his father working as a miner, which he did for the next twelve years. After that he worked briefly as a shop assistant and then as a publican.

The Catholic Workingman (1909), Miners, Mines and Misery (1909), Eight Pound Cottages for Glasgow Citizens (1913), Municipal Banking (1920) and The New Rent Act (1920).

He was a deeply religious man and a practising Roman Catholic. Influenced by early Christian-socialist thinkers, in 1907 he joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP). He founded and was the first chairman of the Catholic Socialist Society.

On 9 May 1924, H. G. Wells led a delegation to ask for birth control reforms. The delegation asked for two things: that institutions under Ministry of Health control should give contraceptive advice to those who asked for it; and that doctors at welfare centres should be allowed to offer advice in certain medical cases. Wheatley held strong views against birth control and refused to support the campaign.

Wheatley was a passionate advocate of the miners' cause during the 1926 general strike.

Wheatley Housing Group (Scotland's largest registered social landlord) and John Wheatley College (now Glasgow Kelvin College) in Glasgow are named after him. His nephew, John Thomas Wheatley, became a Labour MP for Edinburgh East in 1947 and Lord Advocate.

Further reading

Non-fiction

Spartacus Educational Biography http://www.spartacus-educational.com/TUwheatley.htm On-line teaching aid by John Simkin<br />John Wheatley by Ian Wood (Manchester University Press 1990)<br />The Life of John Wheatley by John Hannan (Spokesman Books 1988)

Fiction

No Mean Affair by Robert Ronsson (Foxwell Press 2012)

References

  • John Wheatley & the 1924 Housing Act - UK Parliament Living Heritage
  • "John Wheatley: The Labour lion who led", Richard Leonard, Tribune, 12 May 2010
  • "Was John Wheatley really a working-class hero?", Robert Ronsson, New Statesman, 29 August 2012