View source for John Wheatley

{{short description|Scottish socialist politician}}
{{other people|John Wheatley}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=March 2011}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2017}}
{{Use British English|date=April 2017}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name = John Wheatley
|honorific-suffix = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|MP]]
|image = John Wheatley MP.jpg
|office1 = [[Minister of Health (United Kingdom)|Minister of Health]]
|monarch1 = [[George V]]
|primeminister1 = [[Ramsay MacDonald]]
|term_start1 = 22 January
|term_end1 = 3 November 1924
|predecessor1 = [[William Joynson-Hicks, 1st Viscount Brentford|Sir William Joynson-Hicks]]
|successor1 = [[Neville Chamberlain]]
|office2 = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for [[Glasgow Shettleston (UK Parliament constituency)|Glasgow Shettleston]]
|term_start2 = 16 November 1922
|term_end2 = 12 May 1930
|predecessor2 = [[T. B. S. Adair]]
|successor2 = [[John McGovern (politician)|John McGovern]]
|birth_date = 19 May 1869
|birth_place = [[Bonmahon]], [[History of Ireland (1801–1923)|Ireland]]
|death_place = [[Shettleston]], Scotland
|death_date = 12 May 1930 (aged 60)
|spouse = Mary Meechan
|resting_place = St Peter's Cemetery, [[Glasgow]]
}}
[[File:John Wheatley cigarette card.jpg|thumb|Cigarette card depicting Wheatley]]
'''John Wheatley''' (19 May 1869 – 12 May 1930) was a [[Scotland|Scottish]] [[socialism|socialist]] [[politician]]. He was a prominent figure of the [[Red Clydeside]] era.

==Early life and career==
Wheatley was born to Thomas and Johanna Wheatley in [[Bunmahon|Bonmahon]], [[County Waterford]], [[Ireland]].  In 1876 the family moved to [[Bargeddie|Braehead]], [[Lanarkshire]] in Scotland. Initially—as his father had done in Ireland—he worked as a [[miner]] in the [[Baillieston]] district.<ref name="IWIR">{{cite journal|last=Wood|first=Ian S|year=2010|title=John Wheatley, the Irish, and the Labour Movement in Scotland|journal=The Innes Review|volume=31|issue=2|pages=71–85|doi=10.3366/inr.1980.31.2.71|via=Edinburgh University Press}}</ref>{{rp|71–73}} After that he worked briefly as a publican.

Wheatley then started a successful printing business,<ref name="IWIR"/>{{rp|74}} which published [[leftist]] political works. He wrote many of them, including ''How the Miners Were Robbed'' (1907),<ref>http://economicdemocracy.org/miners.html John Wheatley, 1907</ref>
''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.<ref name="IWIR"/>{{rp|76}}

Against the UK's involvement in [[World War I]], he campaigned against [[conscription]] and assisted in organising [[rent strike]]s in [[Glasgow]].<ref>Stephen Merrett, State Housing in Britain (London: Routledge, 1979)p.45</ref>

As a councillor on [[Glasgow]]'s city council, he became one of the best known in the city, and was elected to the [[British House of Commons|House of Commons]] in the [[1922 United Kingdom general election|1922 General Election]] for [[Glasgow Shettleston (UK Parliament constituency)|Glasgow Shettleston]]. He was a great supporter of [[Celtic Football Club]].

Labour leader [[Ramsay MacDonald]] sometimes disapproved of Wheatley's debating methods, as well as his friendship with [[James Maxton]]. ( Maxton was suspended from the Commons on one occasion when he called Conservative MP [[Frederick Banbury, 1st Baron Banbury of Southam|Sir Frederick Banbury]] "a murderer" for a proposed cut in child welfare.)  But Wheatley continued to work closely with his ILP colleagues in the [[Parliamentary Labour Party]], especially Maxton.{{Citation needed|date=March 2011}}

Wheatley was known as the intellectual behind the ILP activities. Along with many ILP MPs, especially those from [[Clydeside]], he found himself drifting from MacDonald's Labour leadership. Wheatley remained a widely respected political figure and when MacDonald became Prime Minister in January 1924, he appointed Wheatley as his Minister of Health. Wheatley is best remembered for his [[Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1924]], which saw a massive expansion in affordable [[municipal housing]] for the working class.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Smyth|first1=James J|last2=Robertson|first2=Douglas S|date=October 2017|title=Lost Alternatives to Council Housing? An Examination of Stirling's Alternative Housing Initiatives, c. 1906–1939|journal=Journal of Scottish Historical Studies|volume=37|issue=2|page=133|doi=10.3366/jshs.2017.0216|via=Edinburgh University Press|url=http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/24330/1/LostAlternativestoCouncilHousing.pdf|hdl=1893/24330|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Wells Champions Birth Control|date=10 May 1924|work=The Globe (Toronto)|page=3}}</ref> {{Citation needed|date=March 2011}}

Wheatley criticised MacDonald for moving [[The Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] to the right. Consequently he did not hold a post in the Labour Government which formed after the [[1929 United Kingdom general election]]. He refused to support many of the measures proposed by MacDonald's government. Along with Maxton (now Wheatley's leader in the ILP) he became one of the Labour-left's leading critics.

==Death and legacy==
John Wheatley died on 12 May 1930, at age 60.

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 (UK Parliament constituency)|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==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Hansard-contribs|mr-john-wheatley-1|John Wheatley}}
*[https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/towncountry/towns/collections/labhousing1/housea2/ John Wheatley & the 1924 Housing Act - UK Parliament Living Heritage]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100514171825/http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2010/05/12/john-wheatley-the-labour-lion-who-led/ "John Wheatley: The Labour lion who led"], Richard Leonard, ''[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]'', 12 May 2010
* [http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2012/08/was-john-wheatley-really-working-class-hero/ "Was John Wheatley really a working-class hero?"], Robert Ronsson, ''[[New Statesman]]'', 29 August 2012

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{{succession box
 | title = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for [[Glasgow Shettleston (UK Parliament constituency)|Glasgow Shettleston]]
 | years = [[1922 United Kingdom general election|1922]]–[[1930 Glasgow Shettleston by-election|1930]]
 | before = [[Thomas Benjamin Stratton Adair|Thomas Adair]]
 | after = [[John McGovern (politician)|John McGovern]]
}}
{{s-off}}
{{succession box|title=[[Secretary of State for Health|Minister of Health]]|before=[[William Joynson-Hicks, 1st Viscount Brentford|Sir William Joynson-Hicks]]|after=[[Neville Chamberlain]]|years=1924}}
{{s-end}}

{{First Macdonald Ministry}}
{{Secretary of State for Health}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wheatley, John}}
[[Category:1869 births]]
[[Category:1930 deaths]]
[[Category:British anti–World War I activists]]
[[Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Politicians from County Waterford]]
[[Category:Politicians from Glasgow]]
[[Category:Baillieston]]
[[Category:Councillors in Glasgow]]
[[Category:Scottish printers]]
[[Category:Scottish Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:Scottish political writers]]
[[Category:Independent Labour Party MPs]]
[[Category:Independent Labour Party National Administrative Committee members]]
[[Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Glasgow constituencies]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1922–1923]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1923–1924]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1924–1929]]
[[Category:UK MPs 1929–1931]]
[[Category:Scottish miners]]
[[Category:Scottish socialists]]
[[Category:Red Clydeside]]
[[Category:British publicans]]
[[Category:Catholic socialists]]
[[Category:Scottish Labour MPs]]
[[Category:Scottish people of Irish descent]]
[[Category:Shettleston]]