A further investigation came with reports of a fire in the Ardeer factory of Nobel’s explosive company; this was blamed on sabotage rather than the poor design, hurried construction, and improvisation of plant equipment that it was later traced back to.
However after a second incident at a different plant Woolwich Arsenal in early 1915, David Lloyd George was set on blaming alien actors; this led to the creation of the Ministry of Munitions Labour Intelligence Division (MMLI) on 19 February 1916.
After some Labour leaders started to oppose the Munitions of War Act, intelligence shifted from solely finding German agents, to trying to protect against industrial action too, focusing left on the political spectrum.
PMS2 was attached to Colonel Arthur Lee, Parliamentary Military Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions and in practice operated as a branch of MI5.
In June, 1916, MMLI changed its name so P.M.S.2 (parliamentary military security department, No.2) on the grounds of containing as much information about the organisation from the public as possible.
An agent would pose as a conscientious objector on the run from the police, with the guise to make contact with left-wing groups in the labour market.
However, in December 2016 'Alex Gordon' (Rickard), an undercover agent reporting to Herbert Booth, claimed to have discovered ‘A plot to kill David Lloyd George the Prime Minister and Arthur Henderson’ leading to charges against four people, including Alice Wheeldon.