Alice Wheeldon
| Alice Wheeldon | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
27 January 1866 Derby, England |
| Died | 21 February 1919 (aged 53) Derby, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Peace activist |
Alice Ann Wheeldon (27 January 1866 – 21 February 1919) was a British supporter of suffrage and anti-war campaigner. She was convicted in 1917, along with her daughter, Winnie, and son-in-law, Alfred Mason, of conspiracy to murder the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. At least some of the evidence given in the case against them appears to have been fabricated on behalf of "a government eager to disgrace the antiwar movement".
Alice Ann Marshall was born in Derby, England, the daughter of an engine driver who had worked as a house servant when young. In 1886 she married William Augustus Wheeldon, who was a widowed train driver and later a commercial traveller. They had three daughters, Nellie (born 1888), Harriette Ann (Hettie) (born 1891) and Winnie (born 1893), and a son, William Marshall (Willie, born 1892). Willie's application for exemption from military service as a conscientious objector was rejected in 1916.
Wheeldon was a socialist. She was a friend of members of the Socialist Labour Party, although a source of membership is not known. On arrest, police reported finding copies of Socialist and The Tribunal in her house.
She and her children, who shared her feminist political views, were active in the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) until Britain joined in the First World War, when she disagreed with the WSPU's strong support for the War and, later, conscription. With her family, including her daughters Hettie and Winnie and son Willie, Wheeldon expressed her opposition to the War, joining the No-Conscription Fellowship.
The Wheeldon family supported young men opposing conscription in Derby where Alice supported the family by selling secondhand clothes in her shop at 12 Pear Tree Road, where she and her family lived - incorrectly reported as number 29.
It was known that the Wheeldon family was sheltering young men "on the run" from conscription. In December 1916 Alexander Gordon, a secret agent from the Ministry of Munitions (MI5), arrived at the Wheeldon home, claiming to be a conscientious objector on the run. Alice Wheeldon took him in for the night and confided in him. He invented the fiction that the work camps for conscientious objectors provided under the Home Office Scheme were guarded by dogs. Gordon called his immediate superior, Herbert Booth, introducing him to Alice as an army deserter. A package containing two vials of curare and two of strychnine was sent to her. The package was intercepted and it was claimed that these chemicals were intended to kill guard dogs at a work camp. This claim formed the basis of the case against the family when the family were arrested on 30 January 1917. Alice, Hettie, Winnie and Winnie's husband, Alfred Mason, were all charged with conspiracy to murder the Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Labour Party cabinet minister Arthur Henderson.
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