William Bross Lloyd, born on this day in 1875, was a U.S. attorney and political activist who co-founded the Communist Labor Party of America. Lloyd would become one of twenty communists convicted in a major anti-communist Chicago trial.

The oldest son of the muckraking journalist Henry Demarest Lloyd and Jessie Bross, daughter of the founder of the Chicago Tribune, William is best remembered as a founding member and financial angel of the fledgling Communist Labor Party of America, forerunner of the Communist Party USA.

Lloyd would become one of twenty Communists indicted for conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government in a major Chicago trial, prosecuted by future Chicago judge Frank D. Comerford and defended by attorney Clarence Darrow. The trial, which ran from May 10th to August 2nd, 1920, resulted in convictions for all of the defendants.

Lloyd received a sentence of 1 to 5 years in prison but remained free on bail pending resolution of the appeal process. Though the appeals process was exhausted in 1922, Lloyd was no longer seen as a threatening advocate of communism by that date and his sentence was commuted accordingly.