Robert was born at 20 Buccleuch Street, on 18 April 1857. His father's occupation was given as grain merchant, and the address
of his business premises, as provided by the Glasgow Post Office Directories, was Madeira Court, 257 Argyle Street.
Almost the only source for a study of Robert's life is found in G Rankin Taylor's Thomas Dunlop & Sons: Shipowners, 1851 - 1951, and
the following information, for which we are most grateful, is derived from that source:
Robert Jack Dunlop...was educated at the Glasgow Academy and later in France, and had his early business training with the Glasgow shipbroking
firm of Messr. J. & R. Young. [Shipbrokers charter vessels and acquire cargo space for shippers.]
Robert started in business for himself as a shipbroker but, after a few years, joined his brother and father in Thomas Dunlop & Sons, grain
merchants and shipowners and...was chiefly responsible for the shipowning department. He was appointed Lloyd's Agent in Glasgow in 1881.
He was director of the [Glasgow] Chamber of Commerce, which he represented for twenty-seven years on the Clyde Navigation Trust and, in 1934,
was elected president of the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom, having been a member of the Council of the Chamber for over thirty years.
During the 1914-18 war Robert was chairman of the North of England Protection, Indemnity and War Risks Association, a member of the Blue Books
Rates Committee, which was responsible for rates of payment to British merchant shipping during the war years, and a member of the Chamber of
Shipping War Committee, which conferred with the Admiralty regarding means of counteracting the German submarines.
In 1917 Robert Jack Dunlop was Deputy-Lieutenant of the county of the city of Glasgow. He served for many years with the old 1st Lanark
Volunteers [commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant on 23 February 1881], in which his brother Thomas [and cousin William] also served. He retired
with the rank of Major and received the Volunteer Decoration.
From 1923-1932 he was a member of the Merchant Shipping Advisory Council of the Board of Trade, having previously, [in] 1906, been a member of
the Imperial Conference on Merchant Shipping. He was chairman of the Glasgow branch of the Shipping Federation [which functioned as a labour
exchange for seamen] and president of the Clyde Steamship Owners' Association. He was also a member of the Clyde District Committee of
the National Maritime Board. For several years during the 1914-18 war he was president of the Glasgow Shipowners and Shipbrokers
Benevolent Association, and a director of the Glasgow Sailors' Home.
Robert was [at] one time Deacon of the Incorporation of Coopers of Glasgow. He was Dean of the Glasgow Consular Corps, being for many
years Consul of Haiti.
Goodness, is all that this writer can think of to say to that list of achievements!
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