John Wheatley, the son of Thomas and Johanna Wheatley, was born in
Bonmahon, Ireland, on 19th May 1869. John
had nine brothers and sisters and in 1876 the family moved to Braehead
in Lanarkshire. At fourteen, John became a miner like his father.
In 1893 Wheatley left the mine and became a publican and later he
joined his brother to run a grocery shop in Shettleston, a mining
village on the outskirts of Glasgow. The
business failed in 1901 but Wheatley, who had been attended evening
classes for many years, found work as a reporter for the Glasgow
Observer.
Wheatley was greatly influenced by the teaching and support of his
parish priest, Peter Terken. Wheatley read widely including Francesco
Nitti's book Catholic Socialism.
In 1906 Wheatley was converted to socialism and formed the Catholic
Socialist Society in Glasgow. The following
year he joined the Independent Labour Party.
In 1907 Wheatley start a printing business. He also began publishing
political pamphlets. Wheatley wrote a large number of these including
How the Miners are 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).
Wheatley was elected to the Lanarkshire County Council and the Glasgow
Corporation. Wheatley's great interest was working class housing and
he proposed a scheme for the building municipal cottages instead of
tenements in Glasgow.
Wheatley began working closely with other socialists in Glasgow
including David Kirkwood, Emanuel
Shinwell, James Maxton, William
Gallacher, John Muir, Tom
Johnston, Jimmie Stewart, Neil
Maclean, George Hardie, George
Buchanan and James Welsh.
Like
many socialists Wheatley was opposed to Britain's involvement in the
First World War and played an important
role in the fight against conscription.
During the war he was also leader of the Glasgow rent strike.
In 1920 Labour Party representation on Glasgow
Corporation increased to forty-four. Wheatley was now the leading
political figure in Glasgow and in the
1922 General Election was one of the ten
Labour candidates elected to represent the city in the House
of Commons. Others elected included David
Kirkwood, Emanuel Shinwell, James
Maxton, John Muir, Tom
Johnston, Jimmie Stewart, Neil
Maclean, George Hardie, George
Buchanan and James Welsh.
Wheatley was a passionate politician and in June 1923 he was suspended
from the House of Commons for calling the
Conservative government's proposed
cut in grants to child-welfare centres as murder. Ramsay
MacDonald disapproved of Wheatley's style, but respected his administrative
ability. When MacDonald became Prime Minister in January 1924, he
appointed Wheatley as his Minister of Health.
Wheatley's Housing Act which became law
in August 1924, was one of the few achievements of the first Labour
Government. The legislation involved developing a partnership
between political parties, local authorities and specially appointed
committees of building employees and employers. The plan was to build
190,000 new council houses at modest rents in 1925, and that this
figure would gradually increase until it reached 450,000 in 1934.
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.
Wheatley retained his seat in the 1924 General
Election but the Labour Party did badly
and the Conservatives formed the next
government. Wheatley criticised MacDonald's move to the right and
as a result was not appointed to the Labour Government formed after
the 1929 General Election. He refused to
support all the measures proposed by MacDonald's government and led
the fight against the National Insurance Act that Margaret
Bondfield tried to persuade Parliament to pass.
John Wheatley, who had suffered from high blood-pressure since 1924,
died from a cerebral hemorrhage on 12th May 1930.
(1)
John Wheatley, The Catholic Workingman (1909)
It was the duty of Catholics to oppose the revolutionary confiscatory
anti-religious methods of the early, modern continental socialists.
But the methods and aims of the legal evolutionary socialism of Great
Britain do not merit opposition. Socialism in Great Britain means
substitution of the public - the municipality or the State-ownership
for private ownership.
(2)
David
Kirkwood, My Life of Revolt
(1935)
When I
first met John Wheatley, he was in trouble. He had declared himself
a Socialist and founded the Catholic Socialist Society. This was too
much for his co-religionists and their spiritual leaders. There was
little they could do. They decided to do the little. They could not
burn the heretic, so they made an effigy of him, which they carried
through
the streets and burnt amid much pious rejoicing at John Wheatley's
front gate. He had been warned of the danger of being in the house,
for an Irishman under the influence of religious mania, like one under
the influence of alcoholic drink, is reckless. To the consternation
of the inquisitors, John Wheatley stood with his wife at his open
door, smiling at the fanaticism as if it had been fun.
The following
Sunday morning he appeared at Mass as usual, and the trouble died
down.
Now he
was a Socialist candidate for the Parish Council, one of the humblest
and most useful phases of public service. The rumour ran that the
fanatics were going to give him a rough time. Some of us resolved
to attend the meeting, ready to hand out fair exchange for anything
that was coming. Nothing came. The meeting was orderly and attentive.
I had
never heard a speaker state the case for Socialism with such simplicity
and power. I recognized in him a true leader of men. We became friendly,
and began the habit, which we maintained for years, of walking together
in the country on Saturday afternoons.
(3)
C. F. G. Masterman, The
Nation (1st March, 1924)
The house has found a new favourite in Mr. Wheatley, the former
revolutionary member for Glasgow, now Minister of Health. He has been
the one conspicuous success in the new Parliament. A short, squat,
middle-aged man, with a chubby face beaming behind large spectacles.
He possesses a perfect Parliamentary manner; a pleasant voice, confidence
without arrogance, a quick power of repartee, a capacity of convincing
statement, and above all a saving grace of humour.
(4)
John Wheatley, Why a Labour Party? (1925)
There still are people, I suppose, who question the need for
a political working-class organisation, people who believe
that alliances of employers and employed will solve industrial and
political problems. I do not agree with those people.
Conditions bring forth men and movements, and no Labour Movement would
have been possible unless conditions had
been favourable to its birth. It is equally true that the conditions
which called it into being have not changed. The collar on the neck
has been eased in places where it hurt most, but the collar remains.
It is a
fair assumption that had the Liberal or Conservative Party been willing
and able to give the working-class economic security that security
would have been given long ago. Each has had lengthy periods of power
with majorities capable of carrying any measures it chose, and each
has lamentably failed even to bring a decent standard of life to the
major portion of the population.
There
always will, I suppose, be ground for argument as to whether the Labour
Party's programme can bring security to the working-class, but there
is no room for argument as to its willingness. Our economic theories
may fail, but any party or movement created for no other purpose than
the abolition of social injustice is at least entitled to be given
credit for the honesty of its intentions. No student of history will
dispute the fact that this, and this only, was the reason which animated
the minds of those men who first conceived the idea of a great independent
political Labour Party. A great deal of the early struggle was doubtless
merely undirected revolt against social injustice, and without any
preconceived idea as to causes and still less to remedies. History
shows one long series of revolts, each apparently quite unconnected
with the other, but each, nevertheless, an expression of the same
demand for human freedom.
(5)
Philip Snowden, An Autobiography
(1934)
During the time we had been in Opposition (1925-29), Wheatley had
dissociated himself from his former Cabinet colleagues, and had gone
to the back benches into the company of the Clydesiders. In the country,
too, he had made speeches attacking his late colleagues. MacDonald
was strongly opposed to offering him a post in the new Government.
Wheatley had deserted us and insulted us, and MacDonald thought the
country would be shocked if he were included in the Cabinet, and it
would be taken as evidence of rebel influence. Arthur Henderson took
the view, and I was inclined to agree with him, that it might be better
to have him inside than outside. I took this view from my experience
of him as a Minister. he was a man who, when free from the responsibility
of office, would make extreme speeches; but as a Minister I had always
found him to be reasonable and practical.
(6)
John Beckett was a great supporter of
John Wheatley and was devastated by his death
in 1930.
James Maxton and I talked of the necessity for carrying on the work
that Wheatley had left to our hand but in our hearts we knew that
it could not be done. We were the men with whom Wheatley might have
built civilization in Britain, but without him - we could only hope
to fight on, whatever the consequence might be.
On Maxton's
frail shoulders had fallen the sole burden of leadership, and I saw
much of him at that time. I have never associated with a kinder, more
impeccably honesty, loyal and courageous man; but he is without ambition,
has no patience for detail, and a queer philosophy adapted to his
inherent laziness which makes him an impossible leader for any movement.
His politics are socialist, but his habits of thought and temperament
are completely anarchist.
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