The Right Honourable Sir Patrick Duncan GCMG KC |
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6th Governor-General of the Union of South Africa | |
In office 5 April 1937 – 17 July 1943 |
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Monarch | George VI |
Prime Minister |
James Barry Munnik Hertzog Jan Christiaan Smuts |
Preceded by | The Earl of Clarendon |
Succeeded by | Nicolaas Jacobus de Wet as Officer Administering the Government |
Minister for the Interior, Educationand Public Health | |
In office February 1921 – 30 June 1924 |
|
Prime Minister | Jan Smuts |
Preceded by |
Thomas Watt F. S. Malan (Education) |
Succeeded by | Daniel François Malan |
Personal details | |
Born | 21 December 1870 Fortrie, Banffshire, Scotland, United Kingdom |
Died |
17 July 1943 (aged 72) Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa |
Nationality | Anglo-South African (also British subject) |
Spouse(s) | Alice Dold |
Alma mater |
University of Edinburgh Balliol College, Oxford |
Viceregal styles of Sir Patrick Duncan |
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Reference style | His Excellency |
Spoken style | Your Excellency |
Alternative style | Sir |
Sir Patrick Duncan GCMG KC (21 December 1870 – 17 July 1943) was the sixth Governor-General of the Union of South Africa, holding office from 1937 to 1943.
Born in Scotland in 1870, he took degrees in classics at the University of Edinburgh and at Balliol College, Oxford, and studied law in the Inner Temple, before joining the British civil service in 1894 as a Clerk of the Upper Division in the Secretaries' Office for Inland Revenue.
In 1901, during the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), he was recruited by Viscount Milner, to join a team of young administrators - known as "Milner's Kindergarten" - to govern and anglicise the British-occupied Transvaal. He was Colonial Secretary of the Transvaal from 1903 until the colony was granted self-government in 1907, playing an important part in the repatriation of ex-prisoners of war, and in the social and financial reconstruction of the former Boer state.
Duncan practised as an attorney from 1907 to 1910, and was a legal adviser to the Transvaal delegation to the 1908-1909 National Convention that drew up the constitution for the Union of South Africa.
He was a member of the Union Parliament from 1910 to 1936, first as a member of the Unionist Party, then of the South African Party and its successor the United Party. He was Minister of Education, the Interior, and Public Health in the SAP administration from 1921 to 1924, and Minister of Mines in the UP administration from 1933 to 1936.