John Wheatley

For the Labour MP of the 1940s and 50s, see John Wheatley, Baron Wheatley.

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

Wheatley was born in Bonmahon, Co. Waterford in Ireland, to Thomas and Johanna Wheatley. In 1876 the family moved to Braehead, Lanarkshire in Scotland. Initially, he worked as a miner, as his father had done in Ireland, and then briefly as a publican, but he later ran his own successful printing business which specialised in publishing leftist political works, many of which Wheatley wrote himself such as How the Miners are Robbed? (1907) [1], 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).

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

He was involved with in campaigning against the UK's involvement in the First World War, campaigning against conscription, and assisting the organisation of rent strikes in Glasgow.

He sat as a councillor on Glasgow's city council, becoming one of the best known in the city, before being elected to the House of Commons in the 1922 General Election for Glasgow Shettleston.

The Labour leader, Ramsay MacDonald disapproved of Wheatley's debating methods which led to his suspension from the Commons on various occasions, notably on one occasion for calling the Conservative party murderers for a proposed cut in child-welfare centres. He worked closely with his ILP colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party, especially, James Maxton. He was known as the intellectual behind the ILP activities. Along with many of the other ILP MPs, especially those from Clydeside, Wheatley found himself drifting from the Labour leadership under MacDonald.

However, Wheatley remained a widely respected political figure and when MacDonald became Prime Minister in January 1924, he appointed him as his Minister of Health. Wheatley's is best remembered for his Housing Act, which he introduced in this period, which saw a massive expansion in affordable municipal housing for the working-classes.

Wheatley criticised MacDonald's moving Labour to the right and consequently found himself unappointed to the Labour Government formed after the 1929 General Election. He refused to support many of the measures proposed by MacDonald's government and along with Maxton (by now Wheatley's leader in the ILP) became one of the Labour-left's leading critics.

On 9th 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. As a Roman Catholic Wheatley held strong views on birth control and refused to support this campaign.

John Wheatley died on May 12, 1930. John Wheatley College in Glasgow is named after him. His nephew, John Thomas Wheatley, became a Labour MP for Edinburgh in 1947 and Lord Advocate.