Sir Patrick Duncan was born on 21 December 1870 in Fortrie,Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Duncan first educated in Edinburgh, he entered Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained several distinctions. At the age of 23 he entered the Revenue Department at Somerset House, London, and was chosen as private secretary to Sir Alfred Milner, who brought him to South Africa in March 1901. Duncan was the senior member of Milner's famous 'Kindergarten', became Colonial Secretary in the Milner administration in the Transvaal, and in 1906 acted as Lieutenant-Governor of that colony. When the Transvaal received self-government in 1907 Duncan returned to England and was admitted to the bar at the Inner Temple, but came back to Johannesburg to practise as a barrister. He was active in the founding of the Union of South Africa and in 1910 entered the first Parliament as member for Fordsburg. As a leading member of the Unionist Party he joined the Government, after the merger with Smuts's South African Party, as Minister of the Interior, Education and Public Works and held these portfolios until the Hertzog government came into office in 1924.

In the Hertzog-Smuts coalition cabinet of 1933 Duncan was Minister of Mines. On 16 Nov. 1936, on the recommendation of Gen. Hertzog, he was appointed Governor-General of the Union, being the first South African  citizen to hold  the

highest office in the country. A few weeks later he went to London and was invested with the Grand Cross of St. Michael and St. George and also made a Privy Councillor. When Hertzog was defeated in the war crisis of 1939 Duncan refused the Prime Minister's request to dissolve Parliament and order a general election, and instead called upon Gen. Smuts, as the leader of the largest group in Parliament, to form a war cabinet. On 5 April 1942 his term of office was extended for five years, but his health failed rapidly and he died in Government House, Pretoria. He was a liberal-minded man, moderate in his political views. Used to a quiet and simple life, he found the formalities and pomp of Parliament something of an ordeal. In 1916 he married Alice Dold. They had a daughter and three sons, of whom one, Patrick Baker, became well known as a leader of the Liberal Party; he was later obliged to leave the country. Duncan Street, the main thoroughfare in the Pretoria Eastern suburbs, Duncanville near Vereeniging, Duncan Village in Port Elizabeth, and the Duncan Dock in Table Bay are all named after Sir Patrick. He died on 17 July 1943 in Pretoria.

Image: The Campbell Collections 220 Marriot Road Durban 4001 South Africa http://khozi2.nu.ac.za