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John Wheatley
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John 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 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.
In 1896 he married Mary Meechan, a domestic servant. He then moved to Shettleston, on the eastern edge of Glasgow, where he ran a grocery business with his brother Patrick, until the business closed in 1901. He then found work collecting advertising copy for the Glasgow Observer.
Wheatley then started a successful printing business called Hoxton and Walsh in 1908, which published leftist political works. He wrote many of them, including How the Miners Were Robbed (1907), 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).[citation needed]
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.
Wheatley was elected to a Shettleston seat on the Lanarkshire county council in 1910, and he held the seat for Labour in 1912 when Shettleston was incorporated into Glasgow. He became an active councillor, and advocated for council schemes to build municipal housing for working-class tenants at fair rents.
Against the UK's involvement in World War I, he campaigned against conscription, and supported the creation of a Glasgow branch of the Union of Democratic Control, which campaigned for a negotiated peace. He also assisted in organising rent strikes in Glasgow in 1915, which influenced the government sufficiently that they brought in rent restriction legislation.
He stood in the Glasgow Shettleston constituency in the 1918 General Election, but fell just 72 votes short of being elected to the House of Commons. Four years later in the 1922 General Election he succeeded in being elected, and he held the seat until his death in 1930. He was a great supporter of Celtic Football Club.
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John 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 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.
In 1896 he married Mary Meechan, a domestic servant. He then moved to Shettleston, on the eastern edge of Glasgow, where he ran a grocery business with his brother Patrick, until the business closed in 1901. He then found work collecting advertising copy for the Glasgow Observer.
Wheatley then started a successful printing business called Hoxton and Walsh in 1908, which published leftist political works. He wrote many of them, including How the Miners Were Robbed (1907), 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).[citation needed]
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.
Wheatley was elected to a Shettleston seat on the Lanarkshire county council in 1910, and he held the seat for Labour in 1912 when Shettleston was incorporated into Glasgow. He became an active councillor, and advocated for council schemes to build municipal housing for working-class tenants at fair rents.
Against the UK's involvement in World War I, he campaigned against conscription, and supported the creation of a Glasgow branch of the Union of Democratic Control, which campaigned for a negotiated peace. He also assisted in organising rent strikes in Glasgow in 1915, which influenced the government sufficiently that they brought in rent restriction legislation.
He stood in the Glasgow Shettleston constituency in the 1918 General Election, but fell just 72 votes short of being elected to the House of Commons. Four years later in the 1922 General Election he succeeded in being elected, and he held the seat until his death in 1930. He was a great supporter of Celtic Football Club.
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