Conspiracy to murder?
Who was Alice Wheeldon?
A pacifist and socialist, Alice Wheeldon was charged in 1917 with conspiracy to murder the then prime minister David Lloyd George. Opposed to the First World War, she had opened her home in Derby to young men fleeing conscription who needed a hiding place from the police.
Two of those she took in were actually (unknown to her) secret service agents provocateur and it was on their evidence that the unlikely case was based. Although Wheeldon had done little more than express a hope that the prime minister would soon die and idly fantasise about ways of killing him, she and other members of her family were found guilty. Lloyd George himself requested clemency and she left Holloway prison in December 1917.
Answered by: Nick Rennison
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