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Sir William Dunn, 1st Baronet, of Lakenheath, MP, JP, FRGS (22 September 1883 – 31 March 1912), was a London banker, merchant and philanthropist, Liberal Member of Parliament for Paisley (1891-1906), and from before 1896 until the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899 consul general for the Orange Free State in the United Kingdom.

Family
Dunn's family origins were modest. He was born in Paisley near Glasgow on [22 September]] 1833 to John Dunn, a local shopkeeper, and Isabella Chalmers.

Dunn married in South Africa in 1859 with Sarah Elizabeth Howse (1 May 1830 – 2 February 1919), daughter of James Howse (1796-1852), of Grahamstown, Cape Colony, 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.

Career
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 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.

Dunn emigrated to South Africa in 1852, supported by a friend of his father's, local Member of Parliament William Barbour. where he landed in Algoa Bay. He entered the firm of Mackie & Co. of Port Elizabeth. 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 Port Elizabeth; W. Dunn & Co. of Durban; and in Dunn & Co. of East London. 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.

After his return to Britain he settled in London, where he entered public service, as alderman for Cheap Ward in the City of London and from 1891 until the dissolution in 1906 as liberal member of parliament for Paisley. He was also the consul general of the Orange Free State until the outbreak of the Second Boer War. Dunn was also active as chairman of the South African section of the London Chamber of Commerce and member of the Executive Council of that institution.

Dunn was created a baronet in 1895, becoming Sir William Dunn of Lakenheath, 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 West Norwood Cemetery. On his death in 1912, Sir William's estate was valued at 1.3 million pounds. The baronetcy became extinct upon his death.

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 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.

Philanthropist
Dunn had no natural heirs and left their fortune to charity. In his will, dated 4 November 1908, 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 Westminster College, Cambridge. The settlement of the rest of his inheritance he left to his trustees.

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 William Bate Hardy, the president of the Royal Society, and Sir Walter Morley Fletcher, the secretary of the Medical Research Committee, they decided to fund research in biochemistry and pathology. To this end they funded Professor Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins (1861-1947) in Cambridge with a sum of £210,000 in 1920 for the advancement of his work in biochemistry.

Two years later they endowed Professor Georges Dreyer (1873-1934) of the Oxford University with a sum of £100,000 for research in pathology.

The money enabled each of the recipients to establish a chair and sophisticated teaching and research laboratories, the Sir William Dunn Institute of Biochemistry at Cambridge and the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University. Between them, the two establishments have yielded ten Nobel Prize winners, including Hopkins, for the discovery of vitamins, and professors Howard Florey and Ernst Chain (Oxford), for their developmental work on penicillin.

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 trustees.

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".

Edits
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.

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 the Balmoral Castle’ in November 1877.

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 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’.

...........

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).

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:

£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.

...........

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 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:

"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!]

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."

J Med Biogr. 2006 Feb ;14 (1):46-53 16435034 (P,S,E,B) Sir William Dunn (1833-1912): the man, his trust and his legacy to science and medicine.