Bill Boaks

Lieutenant Commander William George Boaks (25 May 1904 – 4 April 1986) was a British Royal Navy officer who became a political campaigner for road safety.

Boaks entered the Royal Navy in 1920, aged 16, as a boy seaman, and was promoted from acting sub-lieutenant to sub-lieutenant on 1 December 1928.

He was granted a temporary commission as a flying officer while on attachment to the Royal Air Force between 2 October 1930 and 7 May 1931, and was promoted to lieutenant on 1 December 1931, and to lieutenant commander on 1 December 1939.

Boaks was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his part in the Dunkirk evacuation in May 1940, during which his ship HMS Basilisk (H11) was sunk, and also took part in the sinking of the GERMAN BATTLESHIP Bismarck while serving as a gunnery officer on board HMS Rodney (29) in May 1941.

He served in the Navy for nearly thirty years, becoming a qualified submarine officer and deep-sea diver.

He was amongst the first Allied officers at Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Boaks retired from the Navy in May 1949.

He moved to Streatham and worked as an executive officer of the Building Apprenticeship Training Council.

In the 1950s, Boaks became involved in a series of legal cases in which he launched private prosecutions of public figures who had been involved in road accidents.

These included Lady Attlee, Prince Philip, Princess Anne and R.A. Butler.

Boaks accused Butler, who was then Home Secretary, of being an accomplice to a policeman who drove Butler to the House of Commons and had committed six traffic offences in Parliament Square.

Boaks' first candidacy for election was at the 1951 general election.

Boaks contested Walthamstow East as an independent candidate for Admiral, or the "Association of Democratic Monarchists Representing All Women".

He had intended to stand against the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, but stood for the wrong seat (Attlee's constituency was Walthamstow West).

Boaks' campaign advocated equal pay for women, subsidised apprenticeships and the sale of council houses.

Boaks received 174 votes, finishing in last place with 0.4% of the vote.

Following his candidacy at Walthamstow East, Boaks continued a career as an eccentric campaigner.

To publicise his campaigns, Boaks initially used his Vauxhall 12 car, which he named Josephine and painted as a zebra crossing, complete with loudspeakers and placards.

In later campaigns, owing to a lack of money, Boaks used a 140lb armoured bicycle which concealed an iron bedstead.

The armoured bicycle included a camera for taking photographs of motorists breaking the law and featured an eight-foot flagpole with sloganeering banners.

The bike was eventually hijacked and taken to Aberystwyth; Boaks was unable to afford the £20 to have it repaired.

In September 1952, Boaks was fined twenty shillings at Bow Street Court for using a motor vehicle for advertising.

He was fined a further twenty shillings a year later at Mansion House Magistrates Court on the same charge.

In 1953 he was a Liberal candidate for Streatham Hill ward in the Wandsworth Metropolitan Borough Council elections.

On 2 April 1955, before the start of an England-Scotland football match at Wembley Stadium, Boaks stopped his van outside and refused to move until all the spectators had crossed the road in front of it.

Two hours later, he stopped his car at a roundabout on Cambridge Circus, again refusing to move until pedestrians crossed.

He was subsequently convicted of two counts of obstructing the highway and fined £5.

On 1 October 1955, Boaks stopped his car at the Strand, and was convicted again of obstructing the highway, and incarcerated for a week in Brixton Prison.

Boaks sued for wrongful imprisonment and sought £10,000 in damages; his case was dismissed in June 1956, as was his appeal in November 1956, and the House of Lords refused his petition to hear his appeal.

Boaks stood again in the 1956 by-election in Walthamstow West, finishing in last place, with 89 votes.

Boaks applied for the vacant position of Chief Constable of Berkshire in 1958 but was not offered an interview.

In light of this, Boaks was not interviewed when he applied to be Chief Constable of Berkshire in 1958.

On 13 July 1959, Boaks entered the Bleriot Race to travel from Marble Arch in London to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris by any form of transport.

Boaks opted to enter the race by rollerskate.

In February 1961, Boaks unsuccessfully applied for planning permission to build a heliport in his garden.

Boaks subsequently submitted further applications to Lambeth London Borough Council, including a proposal to build an underground hangar for eight civil defence helicopters.

A pioneer of British eccentric political campaigning, he jointly held the record for the fewest votes recorded for a candidate in a British parliamentary election, taking five at a by-election in 1982.

Boaks was born in Walthamstow, into a naval family.

His father, William, was a sales clerk for a fruit merchant.

He was educated at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.