Daniel Nicol Dunlop

Who was Daniel Nicol Dunlop?

Daniel Nicol Dunlop was the founder of the World Power Conference, and a theosophist-turned-anthroposophist. He was an artist, and the father of Ronald Ossory Dunlop.

Dunlop lost his mother at the age of five and was brought up by his grandfather on the Isle of Arran. He eventually moved to Dublin where he befriended the poets Æ 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.

Dunlop later 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 1911, with Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti and others, Dunlop helped to found the British Electrical and Allied Manufacturers' Association in London. While Ferranti became its first chairman Dunlop was at first its secretary and later its director.

A year of two after World War I, Dunlop began to organize the World Power Conference, the precursor to the World Energy Council.