TRANSCRIPT FROM A TAPE CONTAINING A RECORD OF A STATEMENT MADE TO MR THOMAS MEYER (PROSPECTIVE AUTHOR OF A BIOGRAPHY OF D N DUNLOP) BY MR C H GRAY, SECRETARY, INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE COUNCIL AND BRITISH NATIONAL COMMITTEE, WORLD POWER CONFERENCE, OCTOBER 1928-FEBRUARY 1966,

Daniel Nicol Dunlop was born at Kilmarnock in Scotland in 1868. He was the son of a Quaker architect. At the age of about five he moved, after the death of his mother, to the house of his grandfather who was living on the Isle of Arran. He underwent his engineering apprenticeship with the Howe Machine Co. at Ardrossan. He then went to Ireland temporarily for work not connected with the electrical industry. At the age of 26, Dunlop went to the United States and worked for the American Westinghouse Co. at their New York office. He worked as what would nowadays be called a public relations officer. He returned to the United Kingdom in 1899 as an employee of  American Westinghouse, where he was styled assistant publicity manager.

There was in existence a weak national electrical manufacturers’association. In 1911 the British Electrical and Allied Manufacturers’ Association was formed on a much broader basis; this organisation will be referred to   by me in the future as BEAMA. Dunlop was first appointed as Secretary; his office was upgraded to that of Director in the year 1917. To the best of my belief he was the first Secretary of a trade association to receive that title. At the end of his life for a short period he had a co-director, a Mr Watlington. (…)

read more: PDF World Power Conference (World Energy Council) – Statement by its first Gen. Secretary C.H. Gray