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 in Bonmahon, County Waterford, 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 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).

A deeply religious man and practising Roman 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 campaigned against the UK's involvement in the First World War, campaigning against conscription, and assisting in organising 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. He was a great supporter of Glasgow Celtic Football Club.

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