page_title: Harry Willcock
section_title: Aftermath and later life
hierarchical_section_title: Harry Willcock / Aftermath and later life
caption_attribution_description: English: A memorial to Harry Willcock commemorating his part in the Identity Card case of 1951
context_page_description: Clarence Harry Willcock was a British Liberal activist and the last person in the United Kingdom to be prosecuted for refusing to produce an identity card.
context_section_description: For this, Willcock became well-known and he founded the Freedom Defence Association to campaign against identity cards. In a publicity event, he tore up his own identity card in front of the National Liberal Club, inspiring in April 1951 a similar action for the press outside Parliament by the British Housewives' League.
  The Party's stance to the campaign was soon cast as 'half-hearted', possibly as he was aligned with the free-trade wing — the issue of identity cards was left out of its manifesto for the 1951 elections.
  Defeating the Labour Government in the general election of 1951, the Conservative government of Winston Churchill put to Conference abolition to 'set the people free', in the words of a minister. On 21 February 1952 the Minister of Health, Harry Crookshank, announced in the Commons that the cards were to be scrapped. This was a popular move but against the consensus of the police and the security services.
  On abolition Willcock was sent hundreds of cards, via post, to auction for charity. In 1952, he forced an election for the four honorary vice-presidents of the Liberal Party, but lost.
  He died suddenly while debating at a meeting of the Eighty Club at the Reform Club. The last word on his lips before his death was reported to have been "freedom."
caption: Memorial to Willcock inside the National Liberal Club
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