Patrick Dollan
Scottish politician, activist and writer (1885–1963) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Scottish politician, activist and writer (1885–1963) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sir Patrick Joseph Dollan (3 April 1885 – 30 January 1963)[1] and his wife, Agnes, Lady Dollan (née Moir; 16 August 1887 – 16 July 1966)[2] were Glasgow activists in the Scottish Independent Labour Party. During the First World War they campaigned against the Munitions of War Act of 1915 which suspended trade unionists' rights for the duration of hostilities.
Born in Baillieston, Lanarkshire on 3 April 1885[3] of Irish descent and raised Roman Catholic, Dollan attended St Bridget's elementary school until he was ten years old. He later joined his father working as a miner at Clydeside Colliery in 1900. He married Agnes Moir, a Protestant, in 1912. She was a suffragette and a staunch pacifist during World War I.[2]
Patrick and Agnes Dollan were vocal in raising awareness of the plight of thousands of Glasgow tenants who were having their rents raised at a time when military conscription had reduced their earning potential. Government concern at the volatile situation in the city led to the Rent Restrictions Act of November 1915, freezing rents at pre-war levels. In the 1920s he was the author of a booklet, The Clyde Rent War!, a narrative of the Glasgow rent strikes of 1915–16,[4] which also contained proposals for housing policy reform.
Dollan was election organiser for the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in the 1922 United Kingdom general election[5]: 31 and then the chairman of the Scottish section of the ILP from 1922[5]: 32 until 1932, when he was expelled and formed his own Scottish Socialist Party, which immediately affiliated to the Labour Party.[6]
Dollan served as Lord Provost of Glasgow from 1938 to 1941.[5]: 33
In 1939 he won the inaugural St Mungo Prize, which is awarded triannually to the person deemed to have done the most to promote and improve the city of Glasgow in the previous three years. He dedicated the prize to his mother.[7] At the beginning of World War II, Dollan encouraged his fellow Glaswegians to support the war effort against fascism,[8] for which efforts he was knighted in 1941.[1][9] In 1940, he was a co-founder and co-chairman (with Jadwiga Harasowska) of the Scottish-Polish Society promoting friendship between the Scottish population and the Polish Army stationing in Scotland at that time.[10]
Keenly interested in town planning, he was a member of the council of the Town and Country Planning Association and of the executive of the Scottish Section. He was the Chairman of the East Kilbride Development Corporation, crucial in bringing industry to that new town. Renowned Scottish planner, Elizabeth Buchanan Mitchell, spoke about him fondly: "His work there was unique. It was there that he wrote his name in the social history of the Scottish nation."
The Dollan Baths in East Kilbride, Scotland's first Olympic-sized swimming pool, is named in his honour.
Dollan died in the Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow, on 30 January 1963. He was buried in Dalbeth cemetery on 1 February.
The Sikorski Club was donated by Sir Patrick Dollan.[11]
King George V conferred a knighthood on Dollan in the New Year's Honours of 1941 for his work as Lord Provost of Glasgow.[12]
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