Wheatley was born on 17 January 1908 in
Shettleston, Glasgow, the third and youngest child of Janet (1877–1951), a pupil teacher and daughter of Peter Murphy, a labourer from
Belfast, and Patrick Wheatley (1875–1937), sometime miner and later publisher, who was born in
County Waterford. He was educated at
St. Aloysius' College, Glasgow,
Mount St Mary's College near
Sheffield, and the
University of Glasgow. He was admitted as an
advocate in 1932. He served in the
Royal Artillery and the
Judge Advocate Generals' Branch during
World War II. As an advocate, he appeared before the
Court of Session in his military uniform. He was an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate for
Bute and North Ayrshire in 1945 and for
Glasgow Bridgeton in 1946, where he was defeated by the
Independent Labour Party candidate. He was elected for
Edinburgh East at a
by-election in November 1947 and sat for the constituency until 1954. He was
Solicitor General for Scotland from March to October 1947, when he was appointed
Lord Advocate. He was appointed a
King's Counsel (KC) and a
Privy Counsellor (PC) in 1947. One of his most significant achievements as a politician was the establishment of the
legal aid scheme in Scotland. He was appointed to the
bench, with the judicial title Lord Wheatley. In 1963, he heard the notorious divorce case of
Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll. He granted the Duke a divorce and, in his written opinion, was harshly critical of the Duchess. In 1966 he was appointed chairman of the
Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland. The resulting "
Wheatley Report", published in 1969, led to the eventual introduction a new system of Scottish local authorities. On 28 July 1970 he was created a
life peer, as
Baron Wheatley, of
Shettleston in the
County of the City of Glasgow. In December 1972 he was appointed to succeed
Lord Grant as
Lord Justice Clerk, a post he held until 1985. Following the
Ibrox disaster in 1971, Wheatley was appointed by the government to conduct an inquiry into safety at sports grounds. His 1972 report became the basis for the
Green Guide. Wheatley was a lifelong
Roman Catholic. He was also known for hard sentencing of crimes involving sex. While Lord Justice-Clerk (an appeal judge), he exercised his right to sit as a trial judge in criminal cases, and handed out long sentences for such crimes. ==Posthumous==