543:£1000 to the head clerk in Wm Dunn & Co; £300 to the other clerks with more than 20 years service; £100 to clerks with more than 10 years service; £200 to his coachman; £100 to his gamekeeper and assistant gamekeeper, and £100 to all domestic servants with more than 10 years service. He also left named sums (between £500 and £5000) to about 40 hospitals, orphanages, children’s homes and similar charitable organizations, and also to institutions in Paisley, all of which amounted to about half the total money available. After Sir William’s death Lady Dunn contested the Will, maintaining that at the time of their marriage her husband had said that he could look after her money better than she could and therefore she had placed it in his care. Not surprisingly, she claimed, she was now entitled to a share of his fortune. The Trustees sympathized with her claim and advised the Attorney General accordingly. The court awarded her £170,000.
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highly critical view presented by Wylie that Dunn should be thought of as a hard-working, highly motivated businessman with a strong and admirable philanthropic streak. Not surprisingly, he seems to have enjoyed to the full the status and public admiration that came with his financial and social successes. By contrast, Wylie’s analysis groups Dunn with people, ‘whose lives have been less than admirable in respect of commercial probity and hardly commendable as examples of social mores’. His attempted demolition of Dunn starts early with the marriage:
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estate of about 2000 acres at
Lakenheath in Suffolk. Here he became a successful agriculturalist and stockbreeder, and a highly respected landowner and local benefactor. A report of Sir William and Lady Dunn’s Golden Wedding celebrations on 3 September 1909 in the local Free Press shows how fondly they were regarded by the local community (Figures 3 and 4).8 Their niece Sarah was also said to be beloved throughout the district – ‘wherever a good turn is to be done, or a deserving cause promoted, there will Miss Dunn be found’.
375:. After two years, still only twenty-one years old, he was offered a partnership in the firm. Another six years later, in 1860, Dunn succeeded his deceased partner as sole proprietor of the business. Over time he built up a large worldwide trading empire from his South African base. Later he returned to Great Britain and controlled his businesses from London. Dunn was senior partner in the firms of William Dunn & Co. of Broad Street Avenue, London EC; Mackie, Dunn, & Co. of
553:"Dunn found it expedient, there was no damned nonsense about love, to marry and thereby extract the utmost benefit from contracting that particular civil state. He sought a spouse from the upper colonial class. His lot fell on one Sarah Howse ..... His Father-in-law was a man of substance both in terms of possessions and character’ [he had actually been dead for seven years at the time of the marriage!]
42:
452:, Dunn prescribed that his inheritance had be made available for the advancement of Christianity and the benefit of children and young people, for the support of hospitals, as well as "to alleviate human suffering, to encourage education and promote emigration". Dunn allotted about half his capital himself and created the Dunn Chair of New Testament Theology at
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In
England, he was able to control his large trading empire centrally from London. He became a recognized authority on South African affairs and was appointed Honorary Consul to the Orange Free State. He acquired a house in Phillimore Gardens, Kensington in London, and some time later a large country
525:
Return to
Britain Dunn first returned to London in the early 1860s and, from entries found in the Port Elizabeth library, he appears to have moved between South Africa and the UK several times. Although he was reported as ‘leaving the colony’ in 1870, he was also reported as travelling ‘to England on
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Despite his noble gestures in death, described below, Dunn's background and business dealings are shady. During his lifetime and after he received a bad press. He was called "pathologically mean" and "a social climber who married for money". It was rumoured that he sold liquor to the the
African
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Discussion An unpublished essay,11 found in the archives of the Oxford Dunn School, presents an interesting and entertaining but extreme view of Sir
William’s motives and mores. Dr John Wylie wrote it in 1977 for the 50th Anniversary Symposium of the Dunn School. There is scant evidence for the
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The Dunn
Trustees also endowed the Dunn Nutritional Laboratory at Cambridge, which opened in 1927. The Dunn Laboratories at Cambridge and at Oxford are forever associated with major discoveries that have helped alleviate human suffering, facts that would surely have pleased Sir William and his
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It is suggested that Dunn received his earliest education at home, although there are also indications that he attended school in the working-class West End
District of Paisley. At the age of fourteen Dunn became an apprentice at a local accountant's office. In view of the fact that his elder
437:
population in the
Eastern Cape. Once in Parliament he allegedly did everything in his power to further his own agenda. And with his will something was amiss as well. His wife contested it and won. On the other hand, there is little evidence to substantiate the accusations and rumours.
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In 1859 he married Sarah
Elizabeth Howse, the daughter of a successful South African businessman from Grahamstown, who apparently had been murdered by disaffected tribesmen in 1852. Although they did not have children, later they adopted Sir William’s niece – Sarah Dunn.
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It is, however, more than probable that Dunn schemed his way into what he must have known was a bereaved household and since he could, and often did, present a plausible countenance, no doubt secured his marital prize to his own great social advantage."
348:, and Sarah Ann Dold (1803-1881). James Howse emigrated to Algoa Bay, South Africa from Oxfordshire in 1820. He started off as a labourer, but later owned the farm "Leeuwfontein". He was killed in an ambush on the way to his farm on New Years' Day 1852.
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brothers – William was the youngest – all went to work in spinning and weaving, it seems reasonable to surmise that Dunn, through his intelligence and education, was able to break free from his social environment.
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After providing annuities of £3000 for his wife and £1000 for his adopted daughter Sarah, and stating that he had adequately provided for his interests in the
Presbyterian Church and South Africa during his lifetime, he left:
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Dunn himself made more earthly gifts, like the donation – to his birthplace Paisley in 1894 – of a square, "to be kept for the enjoyment of all the inhabitants", which was named "Dunn Square".
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The Will Sir William’s Will was dated 4 November 1908. His estate was valued eventually at about £1.3 million (by comparison, Cecil Rhodes, who died about 10 years earlier, left about £3.5 million).
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429:, after his residence in the country. While in London he lived at 34 Phillimore Gardens, Kensington and alternatively at "The Retreat", Lakenheath, Suffolk. Both he and his wife were buried at
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After handing out a large number of small grants to hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages, etc., the trustees decided on a grander scheme. In cooperation with Sir
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471:, the secretary of the Medical Research Committee, they decided to fund research in biochemistry and pathology. To this end they funded Professor Sir
387:. He was also a director of the Royal Exchange Assurance Co. and of the Union Discount Co. and chairman of the of the Home and Foreign Insurance Co.
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at Cambridge and the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University. Between them, the two establishments have yielded ten
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Sidebottom, Eric (February 2006). "Sir William Dunn (1833-1912): the man, his trust and his legacy to science and medicine".
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The money enabled each of the recipients to establish a chair and sophisticated teaching and research laboratories, the
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in 1852, supported by a friend of his father's, local Member of Parliament William Barbour. where he landed in
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Sir William Dunn (1833-1912): the man, his trust and his legacy to science and medicine.
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After his return to Britain he settled in London, where he entered public service, as
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with a sum of £210,000 in 1920 for the advancement of his work in biochemistry.
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Dunn had no natural heirs and left their fortune to charity. In his will, dated
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Two years later they endowed Professor Georges Dreyer (1873-1934) of the
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Dunn's family origins were modest. He was born in Paisley near
278:(1891-1906), and from before 1896 until the outbreak of the
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to John Dunn, a local shopkeeper, and Isabella Chalmers.
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and member of the Executive Council of that institution.
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Scottish Field. Scotland's official magazine of the year
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The Anglo-African Who's Who and Biographical Sketchbook
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J Med Biogr. 2006 Feb ;14 (1):46-53 16435034 (P,S,E,B)
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709:Sidebottom. "Sir William Dunn (1833-1912)": 47.
661:Sidebottom. "Sir William Dunn (1833-1912)": 47.
398:and from 1891 until the dissolution in 1906 as
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918:"Desmond McAllister's Collaborated Genealogy"
648:"Desmond McAllister's Collaborated Genealogy"
615:Wills (ed.), "Dunn, Sir William", p. 108
371:. He entered the firm of Mackie & Co. of
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811:"Sir William Dunn Bt (1833-1912)"
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809:Flanagan, Bob (January 2007).
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830:"From Paisley to penicillin"
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108:Consul General of the
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272:Member of Parliament
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173:(1912-03-31)
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85:Succeeded by
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1002:C. Hiddingh
997:U. G. Lauts
990:Netherlands
495:Nobel Prize
385:East London
346:Cape Colony
342:Grahamstown
188:Nationality
75:Preceded by
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821:2008-05-02
803:Literature
770:Flanagan.
570:References
509:trustees.
503:penicillin
467:, and Sir
447:4 November
427:Lakenheath
335:2 February
270:, Liberal
220:politician
208:Occupation
151:1833-09-22
888:ignored (
738:ignored (
690:ignored (
477:Cambridge
369:Algoa Bay
294:Biography
262:), was a
121:1895–1900
117:In office
69:1891–1906
65:In office
911:Websites
869:16435034
621:citation
499:vitamins
392:alderman
333:–
257:31 March
255:–
212:merchant
162:Scotland
102:Scotland
1037:Belgium
423:baronet
406:of the
400:liberal
313:Glasgow
286:in the
276:Paisley
192:British
182:England
158:Paisley
98:Paisley
867:
381:Durban
355:Career
299:Family
264:London
216:banker
178:London
1053:Spain
575:Notes
517:Edits
328:1 May
315:on ]
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331:1830
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