Alice Ann Wheeldon (27 January 1866 – 21 February 1919) was a British supporter of universal and

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

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 David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. A Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, he was known for leadi ...

. Some of the evidence given in the case against them appears to have been fabricated on behalf of "a government eager to disgrace the anti-war movement".

Early life and family

Alice Ann Marshall was born in

Derby Derby ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area on the River Derwent, Derbyshire, River Derwent in Derbyshire, England. Derbyshire is named after Derby, which was its original co ...

, 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).

Political activism

Wheeldon was a socialist. She was a friend of members of the Socialist Labour Party, especially John Smith Clarke although a source of membership is not known. On arrest, police reported finding copies of ''The Socialist'' and ''The Tribunal'' in her house. She and her children, who shared her feminist political views and were active campaigners until Britain joined in the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. Wheeldon disagreed with the Women's Social and Political Union's (WSPU) strong support for the War and

conscription Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it conti ...

. 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 No-Conscription Fellowship was a British pacifist organisation which was founded in London by Fenner Brockway and Clifford Allen on 27 November 1914, following a suggestion by Lilla Brockway, after the First World War had failed to reach ...

. Willie's application for exemption from

military service Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer military, volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription). Few nations, such ...

as a

conscientious objector A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–indu ...

was rejected in 1916. In 1917 he went before the Central Military Tribunal and was sentenced to two years hard labour. The Wheeldon family supported young men opposing

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.

Arrest and trial

It was known that the Wheeldon family was sheltering young men "on the run" from conscription. In December 1916 'Alex Gordon', an undercover agent from P.M.S.2, 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 The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...

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 Curare ( or ; or ) is a common name for various alkaloid arrow poisons originating from plant extracts. Used as a paralyzing agent by indigenous peoples in Central and South America for hunting and for therapeutic purposes, curare only ...

and two of

strychnine Strychnine (, , American English, US chiefly ) is a highly toxicity, toxic, colorless, bitter, crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine, when inhaled, swallowed, ...

was sent to her. The package was intercepted and it was claimed that these chemicals were intended to kill

guard dog A guard dog or watchdog is a dog used to watch for and guard people or property against unwanted human or animal intruders. A dog trained to attack intruders is known as an attack dog. History Dogs have been used as guardians since ancient ...

s 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

and Labour Party cabinet minister

Arthur Henderson Arthur Henderson (13 September 1863 – 20 October 1935) was a British iron moulder and Labour Party (UK), Labour politician. He was the first Labour Cabinet of the United Kingdom, cabinet minister, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934 and, uniqu ...

. The

Attorney-General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...

, F. E. Smith, himself, led the prosecution held in

Derby Guildhall Derby Guildhall is a municipal building in the Market Place, Derby, England. It is a Grade II listed building. History A moot hall was first established in the Market Place area in 1204. This was replaced by a timber and plaster guildhall in 15 ...

. The trial was moved to the

Old Bailey The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly referred to as the Old Bailey after the street on which it stands, is a criminal court building in central London, one of several that house the Crown Court of England and Wales. The s ...

, London, where he prosecuted the case in person. The trial began on 6 March 1917; Smith refused to call Gordon as a witness or divulge his name or whereabouts, thus preventing his being cross-examined. Alice was sentenced to ten years'

penal servitude Penal labour is a term for various kinds of forced labour that prisoners are required to perform, typically manual labour. The work may be light or hard, depending on the context. Forms of sentence involving penal labour have included inv ...

, Alfred Mason (aged 24) was sentenced to seven years and Winnie (aged 23) to five years, even though the jury recommended mercy on account of their youth. Hettie was acquitted. Alice was sent to Aylesbury Prison, where she went on intermittent

hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance where participants fasting, fast as an act of political protest, usually with the objective of achieving a specific goal, such as a policy change. Hunger strikers that do not take fluids are ...

; she was later moved to Holloway. At a public meeting in London, the day after conviction 11 March 1917, the Workers Suffrage Federation (WSF) passed a resolution condemning the verdict, as their representative

Sylvia Pankhurst Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (; 5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was an English Feminism, feminist and Socialism, socialist activist and writer. Following encounters with women-led labour activism in the United States, she worked to organise worki ...

wrote, since it was based "on the supposed evidence of an unknown spy who was not put in the witness-box". Three days after the conviction, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers published an open letter to the Home Secretary that included the following; "We demand that the Police Spies, on whose evidence the Wheeldon family is being tried, be put in the Witness Box, believing that in the event of this being done fresh evidence will be forthcoming which will put a different complexion on the case." In '' New Witness'', on 15 March

G. K. Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English author, philosopher, Christian apologist, journalist and magazine editor, and literary and art critic. Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brow ...

's editorial skewered the F. E. Smith, the Attorney-General's refusal to produce

Alex Gordon Alexander Jonathan Gordon (born February 10, 1984) is an American former professional baseball left fielder who played his entire career for the Kansas City Royals of Major League Baseball (MLB) from 2007 to 2020. Prior to playing professional ...

for examination in court, presciently with the title 'Vanishing Spy' since the British government in fact whisked him and his wife away to South Africa. For the rest of 1917, '' New Witness'' carried more editorials and letters. After the rejected appeal in early April, a letter from

Hilaire Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc ( ; ; 27 July 187016 July 1953) was a French-English writer, politician, and historian. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist. His Catholic fait ...

raised case law on the failure to produce the witness. Replying in support of Belloc, D. H. Prynne, who as Treasury Counsel had acted for the Director of Public Prosecutions in a 1913 case where the primary witness was also not called, referred to the decision in Wheeldon & Ors as 'A dangerous precedent'.

Death

Wheeldon was released from prison on licence on 31 December 1917 at the request of Lloyd George. Her health permanently weakened, she died of

influenza Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These sympto ...

during the

pandemic A pandemic ( ) is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic (epi ...

a little over a year later in 1919. At her funeral, Willie (possibly William Land, her nephew also a CO) placed a red flag over his mother's coffin and her friend John Smith Clarke, still evading police as a conscientious objector on the run, was the only speaker. Her daughters, Winnie and Hettie, were too ill to attend the funeral. Wheeldon's grave was not marked as there was concern it would be defaced. Hettie died in 1920; in that year she had married

Arthur MacManus Arthur MacManus (1889 – 27 February 1927) was a Scottish trade unionist and communist politician. Biography Early years Arthur MacManus was born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1889, later moving to Glasgow, Scotland, with his parents. Political c ...

, first chairman of the Communist Party of Great Britain. In 1921 Willie Wheeldon joined a Friends Emergency Victims of War Relief mission going to Buzuluk,

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. He married in Russia, took

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

citizenship and became a translator for the

Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...

. During the

Stalinist purges The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the assassination of Sergei Kirov by Leonid Nikolae ...

, he was arrested on 5 October 1937 and shot on Christmas Day of that year.

Memorial

In 2013

Derby City Council Derby City Council is the Local government in England, local authority for the City status in the United Kingdom, city of Derby, in the ceremonial county of Derbyshire in the East Midlands region of England. Derby has had a council from medieval ...

and Derby Civic Society erected a

Blue Plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom, and certain other countries and territories, to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving a ...

as a memorial at 12 Pear Tree Road, Normanton, Derby.

Legacy

In Derby in 2011 the Derby Peoples History Group aimed to highlight injustices in history and began a campaign to clear Alice Wheeldon's name. They also wanted a blue plaque in Derby to be erected and a tour or walk of the sites. In January 2012 the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

reported on a campaign to clear Wheeldon's name, quoting Dr Nicholas Hiley of the

University of Kent The University of Kent (formerly the University of Kent at Canterbury, abbreviated as UKC) is a Collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom. The university was granted its roya ...

, who said the case against her was "shaky". Hiley said that during the First World War MI5 had become "very fixated on political opposition to the war" and that the Wheeldons' unusual combination of beliefs (Marxists, atheists, vegetarians, supporters of the

suffragettes A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for women's suffrage, the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in part ...

and conscientious objectors), had drawn MI5's attention. Hiley described Alex Gordon (in reality William Rickard) as an "unbalanced fantasist" who was "spectacularly unreliable"; a convicted blackmailer, he had twice been declared criminally insane and was released from the high-security psychiatric

Broadmoor Hospital Broadmoor Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England. It is the oldest of England's three high-security psychiatric hospitals, the other two being Ashworth Hospital near Liverpool and Rampton Secure ...

only two years before being employed by MI5. Hiley went on to suggest that Rickard's department of MI5 was facing closure at the time of Wheeldon's arrest and the case against her and her family was fabricated to justify the department being kept open. In 2019, after a long campaign, an application claiming a miscarriage of justice was lodged with the

Criminal Cases Review Commission The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is the statutory body responsible for investigating alleged miscarriages of justice in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. It was established by Section 8 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 and be ...

(CCRC). On 15 June 2022, the BBC reported that an application for review to clear the name of the three people convicted of conspiring to kill the prime minister had failed. However, the Criminal Cases Review Commission stated that while the arguments of the submission had merit, the case was too old to justify the expense of referral to the Court of Appeal. The commission also said that "The submissions identified in the application may raise a real possibility that these convictions would be overturned." Campaigners are satisfied with the outcome. Downloads of the application, the CCRC's decision, and response to it are online.

Bibliography

* "Wheeldon, Alice Ann", ''

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...

'' * Jackson, John (2007) "Losing the plot", ''History Today'', May 2007 * Rippon, Nicola, (2009) ''The Plot to Kill Lloyd George: The Story of Alice Wheeldon and the Peartree Conspiracy'', * Rowbotham, Sheila, Friends of Alice Wheeldon (Pluto Press, 1986) *

Rowbotham, Sheila Sheila Rowbotham (born 27 February 1943) is an English socialist feminism, socialist feminist theorist and historian. She is the author of many notable books in the field of women's studies, including ''Hidden from History'' (1973), ''Beyond th ...

, Friends of Alice Wheeldon - 2nd Edition, The Anti-War Activist Accused of Plotting to Kill Lloyd George (Pluto Press, 2015) * Wood, Val and Whitehead, Bill (2013) "Alice Wheeldon" Derby, UCU

References

External links

www.alicewheeldon.org/
Website of Deirdre and Chloë Mason, great-granddaughters of Alice Wheeldon.

Website Edited by John Simpkin. {{DEFAULTSORT:Wheeldon, Alice 1866 births 1919 deaths People from Derby British anti–World War I activists British suffragists Crime in Derby British conscientious objectors Deaths from the Spanish flu pandemic in England