Lieutenant Commander William George Boaks (May 1904–1986) was a British Royal Navy officer who became an eccentric political campaigner for road safety. Somewhat ironically, he died aged 82 as a result of a road traffic accident.

Boaks was born in Walthamstow into a naval family, and educated at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich. He served nearly 30 years in the Royal Navy and won the DSC at Dunkirk, as well as taking part in the sinking of the Bismarck whilst a gunnery officer on board HMS Rodney. He was a qualified submarine officer, a flying officer in the Fleet Air Arm, and a qualified deep-sea diver. After World War II, he was an executive officer of the Building Apprenticeship Training Council .

In the 1951 general election, Boaks fought Walthamstow East as an independent candidate for "Admiral" (which stood for "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). In the event, Boaks received 174 votes out of 40,001 cast.

Over the years the label changed (in one election he stood as the "Trains & Boats & Planes" candidate - the name of a popular contemporary song which he found apt to adopt), but when revisions to electoral law allowed candidates to have a six letter description of their candidature on the ballot paper, he settled on "Public Safety Democratic Monarchist White Resident".

Boaks' main concern was public safety on the roads. His other political views tended to be old fashioned Conservatism combined with anti-Communism, combined with an increasing distrust of "The Establishment" (as he put it) - the latter fuelled by his frequent court appearences. He confused journalists (some of whom were scared of him!) by making claims that they never quite knew were serious or simply Boaks having fun at their expense - eg. he said he would never fight the Croydon consituency as he believed that the "communist menace" was never a threat there)! He believed that homosexuals should be debarred from the Civil Service as he thought they were more vulnerable to blackmail by foreign powers.

His "White Resident" label led to him being labelled as a "racist" by the Anti-Nazi League, but Boaks chose this as a means of provoking left-wingers (whom he despised, despite having a number of rather left-wing views of his own, particularly on the Health Service) and hoping to undercut votes for the National Front and similar parties. Boaks was contemptuous of the NF having stood against a number of its members in the 1950s and 1960s when they were part of openly neo-Nazi groups such as John Bean's British National Party, Colin Jordan's White Defence League and Oswald Mosley's Union Movement. The "White Resident" tag was also a means of attracting easy media attention during the heated debate over immigration in the 1970s in the UK in order to push his "Public Safety" agenda.

Ironically, Boaks' stance led to him being the first promoter of ethnic minority candidates in United Kingdom elections. His usual set-piece when confronted over his label by anyone non-white was to say "Why White Resident? Because that's what I am!" He would then grab the questioner's hand, slap a pound note into it, and say "Now find 149 more of those [the deposit then being £150] and stand as a 'Black Immigrant' candidate for what YOU believe in. If you don't, who will?" Boaks reckoned he'd given away a couple of hundred pounds in this manner, but he never saw anyone take up his challenge during his lifetime.

Boaks did not object to motorised transport per se (he used a car painted with zebra stripes before the infamous armoured tricycle came into play) - what he objected to was the increased volume at the expense of other forms (as well as favouring all freight to be carried by rail, he was a big fan of helicopters as a potential means of alleviating traffic congestion) & the problems caused by pollution and the damage caused to property beside roads favoured by heavy goods vehicles.

Boaks central campaign point was simple - he wanted the inversion of the law concerning Zebra Crossings, so that all roadways would be treated as if they were Zebra Crossings (except for those parts painted as such) - giving pedestrians the right of way at all times. The idea was that it would save countless lives by increasing driver responsibility, and would cause such chaos in urban areas as to force people back onto public transport rather than using private cars which by the 1960s had become more of a "must have" status symbol than a necessity for daily living, and push most freight back onto the railways.

To reinforce his point, Boaks would deliberately hold up traffic at crossings; he later took to pushing a trolley or pram full of bricks on to the road backwards & forwards over Zebra Crossings (& thus any car foolish enough to attempt to ram his pram out of the way soon regretted it). Occasionally, he would sit in a deck-chair in the fast lane of the A40(M) Westway in Hammersmith, reading the Daily Telegraph.

In the 1950s, he became involved in a series of legal cases in which he launched private prosecutions of public figures who had been involved in road accidents. Clement Attlee could not drive, and relied upon his wife to drive him. Lady Attlee was a notoriously bad driver - long rumoured to be as a result of drink - and Boaks would attempt a private prosecution whenever she crashed. Boaks himself however was charged & fined several times for his trouble, which merely stiffened his resolve.

Boaks eventually moved to Wimbledon in south-west London, where his own usual mode of transport was the bicycle. He continued to stand as a candidate in elections from time to time, but Boaks' election campaigning took off in the mid-1970s, when he took to travelling around the country to fight most by-elections. He would find the ten registered voters he needed to fight the election, but would not usually spend a long time in the constituency. He would campaign intermittently by cycling around the target constituency, wearing a large cardboard box daubed with his slogans. He was limited to six words of description on the ballot paper, and usually described himself as "Air, Road, Public Safety, White Resident" or "Democratic Monarchist, Public Safety, White Resident".

He usually obtained a derisory number of votes and often finished at the bottom of the poll. At the Glasgow Hillhead byelection in March 1982, Boaks received just 5 votes, which was a record low for any candidate in any Parliamentary election. (His highest vote was 240 in Wimbledon at the February 1974 general election). The irony was Boaks was expected to receive his biggest vote at this election - the first he'd ever stood for with a sizeable student population (the Hillhead constituency being dominated by Glasgow University). Unfortunately for Boaks, polling day fell upon the beginning of a University term holiday and most students residing in the area had returned home, including five of his sponsors). In all, he stood in over 40 elections - losing his deposit every time - more than any other candidate until this was finally overtaken by Lord Sutch of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party at the General Election of 1992.

Growing infirmity forced him to give up contesting elections after standing simultaneously in the by-elections in Southwark Peckham and Birmingham Northfield in 1982, though he attended the count in Bermondsey as counting agent for Screaming Lord Sutch in 1983, whilst recovering from being knocked down by a motorcycle. But there was also the simple matter that his money was running out - and the mooted plans at Bermondsey to be part of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party roster for the 1983 General Election, standing in Sutch & Boaks' own home consituency of Streatham never came to pass.

In 1984 he was injured in a second minor road traffic accident whilst getting off a bus; his death in hospital two years later was the result of complications from the head injuries sustained. His funeral was attended by the then Transport Secretary Peter Bottomley.

Boaks left three continuing legacies. The first is the pedestrianisation of London's Carnaby Street, which he took an active part in with Screaming Lord Sutch and set the precedent for "Pedestrian Precincts" elsewhere in the UK. The second is HMS Belfast lying near Tower Bridge in London as a tourist attraction - it was his advice as to the correct depths of the Thames as this juncture that persuaded the Royal Navy as to its viability as a floating museum rather than scrapping it. Finally, there remains his passing role in the creation of Official Monster Raving Loony Party - a number of their more successful candidates (particularly Wild Willi Beckett & Peter "Top Cat" Owen) emulating one of Boak's old tactics of using the middle of roundabouts as a place to campaign from (until the police arrive!) during elections.

External links

• Description of Boaks' campaigning (Hansard, House of Lords debates, 10 October 2004)
• Great British People
• Tales of the Politically Bizarre – Bill Boaks