Daniel Nicol Dunlop

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Daniel Nicol Dunlop (28 December 1868, Kilmarnock, Scotland 30 May

1935, London) was a Scottish entrepreneur, founder of the World Power Conference and
other associations, and a theosophist-turned-anthroposophist. He was the father of
artist Ronald Ossory Dunlop.
Contents
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1Life and work

1.1Childhood, education, marriage and children

1.2In business

1.3His work for Theosophy

1.4Meeting with Anthroposophy

2Selected published work

3Literature

4References

5External links

Life and work[edit]

Childhood, education, marriage and children[edit]
Dunlop was born on 28 December 1868 in Kilmarnock as the only child of Alexander
Dunlop and Catherine Nicol (18471873). His father was an architect and
a Quaker preacher. He lost his mother at the age of five and was brought up by his
grandfather on the Isle of Arran, where he learnt the trade of fishing. After his grandfather
died in turn, he returned to his father in Kilmarnock once again, attending the local
school. On completing his schooling, he did an apprenticeship with an engineering
company in Ardrossan, Ayrshire in western Scotland.
After some differences of opinion with his father, he left home in 1886, taking a job in a
bicycle shop in Glasgow. He moved to Dublin 1889, working for a tea and wine merchant,
where he befriended the poets (George William Russell) and William Butler Yeats, and
became active in the Irish Theosophical Society. He was also known to James Joyce,
and gets a mention in Ulysses.
In 1891 he married Eleanor Fitzpatrick (ca. 18671932); becoming the father of three
children, Ronald Ossory Dunlop, a well-known painter and daughters Edith and Aileen.

In business[edit]
Dunlop moved to America, and in 1896 was employed by the American Westinghouse
Electric Company, becoming later assistant manager, and then manager of its European
Publicity Department. In 1899 he returned to Britain with his family in this capacity. In
1911, with Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti and others, Dunlop helped to found the British
Electrical and Allied Manufacturers' Association (BEAMA) in London, which still exists
today. While Ferranti became its first chairman (to 1913) Dunlop was at first its secretary
and later its director.[1][2] A year of two after World War I, Dunlop began to organize the
World Power Conference, the precursor to the World Energy Council, which met for the
first time on 11 July 1924 and of which he was elected chairman. [3] Towards the close of
his life he was elected independent chairman of the Electrical Fair Trading Council and
chairman of the executive council of the World Power Conference.

His work for Theosophy[edit]

Shortly after leaving home for Glasgow in 1886, Dunlop began to study works
on Occultism and Philosophy. This was greatly stimulated by his friendship with and
led to their lifelong connection. After moving to Dublin, he became a member of the local
lodge of the Theosophical Society. Together with and Yeats he attended meetings of
the Hermetic Society and in 1882 founded the magazine The Irish Theosophist, which
he edited until his departure from Dublin in 1897 for the United States.[4]
When the Theosophical Society split in 1895, Dunlop became a member of the
Theosophical Society in America, where he at intervals functioned as secretary to its
president, Katherine Tingley, At the end of 1899 he resigned from the Theosophical
Society in America, or was perhaps, expelled, the documentation being unclear on this
point,[5] and joined the Theosophical Society Adyar in London. He published many articles
in the Theosophical Review" and "The Vahan". In 1909 he initiated the Summer Schools,
regular international meetings with theosophical lecture cycles and events where
participants got to know one another more intimately. In 1910 he founded the Blavatsky
Institute in Manchester in the same year, together with Charles Lazenby, the magazine
the Path.[6] He also founded his own theosophical lodge under the auspices of the
Theosophical Society with the name Light on the Path and became its president.

Meeting with Anthroposophy[edit]

Dunlop saw Rudolf Steiner for the first time while the latter was still General Secretary of
the German Section of the Theosophical Society. He did not, however, join
the Anthroposophical Society until 1920, at which time he called into being the
anthroposophical Human Freedom Group, which he led. Here once again, he
introduced the idea of, this time, anthroposophical Summer Schools that were realised in
1923 and again in 1924. After personally meeting with Rudolf Steiner, both of them
expressed their intimate spiritual connection and respect for one another. In 1928 he
organised the first and only World Conference on Anthroposophy and in 1929 he was
elected General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain. He was on
terms of intimate friendship with Eleanor Merry (18731956), who supported his work,
especially after the death of his own wife, Eleanor in 1932. As a result of conflicts and
power struggles within the General Anthroposophical Society, leading to its splintering in

April 1935, Dunlop was expelled together with a number of other leading members. [7] He
died shortly afterwards of an appendicitis. Dunlop enlisted the help of fellow
anthroposophist Walter Johannes Stein in the hope of founding a World Economic
Organisation, but his death prevented this.[8]

Selected published work[edit]

Protean Man, London 1912

Symbols of Magic, London 1915

Studies in the Philosophy of Lorenz Oken. London 1916

Duty, London 1919

The Path of Knowledge, London 1920

Nature-Spirits and the Spirits of the Elements, London 1920

Literature[edit]

Thomas Meyer: D. N. Dunlop, A Man of Our Time. Temple Lodge Publishing

(Oct. 1 1996) ISBN 978-0904693386

Eleanor C. Merry: Erinnerungen an Rudolf Steiner und D. N. Dunlop. Perseus,

Basel 1992, ISBN 3-907564-11-1

References[edit]
1. Jump up^ J. F. Wilson, Ferranti and the British Electrical Industry, 1864-1930.
Manchester University Press, 1988.[1]
2. Jump up^ History of BEAMA 1911: http://www.beama.org.uk/history/default.asp?
cp=3&id=1911
3. Jump up^ WEC's History: http://www.worldenergy.org/wecgeis/wec_info/history/history.asp
4. Jump up^ Index to The Irish Theosophist 1892
1897: http://www.austheos.org.au/indices/IRISHT.HTM
5. Jump up^ Index to The Lamp 1894
1900: http://www.austheos.org.au/indices/LAMP__.HTM
6. Jump up^ Index to The Path 1910
1914: http://www.austheos.org.au/indices/PATHUK.HTM

7. Jump up^ Rudolf Steiner in Britain by Crispian Villeneuve. Temple Lodge Press
2009 ISBN 978-1-906999-03-2
8. Jump up^ Wright, Rebecca; Shin, Hiroki; Trentmann, Frank (2013). From World Power
Conference to World Energy Council: 90 Years of Energy Cooperation, 1923 2013 (PDF). World Energy Council. p. 12. ISBN 978 0 946121 31 1. Retrieved March
2014. Check date values in: |accessdate=(help)