Unemployed Organiser Fined.

March 1929

Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Friday 22 March 1929

Unemployed Organiser Fined.

A fine of £5 was imposed at Doncaster yesterday on Christopher W. Wilks, miner, of Conisborough, who was accused of obtaining 2s. 6d. from John James Woffenden, company director, of Mexborough, by false pretences.

It was alleged that Wilks induced prosecutor to give him the money on the pretext that it was for the Mexborough and District Unemployed Miners’ Distress Committee, which was nonexistent.

The caretaker of the Primitive Methodist schoolroom at Mexborough, John F. Lovis, said the prisoner asked him if he could hire a room and it was arranged for him to use a room at 2s a night. On the first night Wilks put a notice on the door saying that there was meeting of the Permanent Unemployed Union.”

Wilks denied collecting for the fund mentioned, but said he was an organiser for an unemployed movement that had committee. He declared that “Labour was not worth backing, and he had finished with them.”