1540 Percy Molteno

Constituency  : Dumfriesshire   1906-18

Percy  unseated  the  Liberal  Unionist  William  Maxwell  at  Dumfriesshire.

Percy  was  born  in  South  Africa, the  son  of  John  Molteno, later  the  first  Prime  Minister  of  the  Cape  Colony.He  was   educated  at  a  diocesan  college  then  Csmbridge.. He  became  a  barrister  operating  in  the  Cape  Colony. After  some  years  he  accepted  a  partnership  in  Donald  Currie's  shipping  firm, married  his  daughter   and  moved  to  England. Under  his  stewardship  the  company  dominated  South  Africa's  export  trade. He  achieved  a  dominant  position  through  taking  advantage  of  the  new  science  of  refrigeration  to  boost  fruit  exports.Percy  was  on  the  radical  wing  of  the  party  and  fiercely  opposed  the  Boer  War. Churchill  refused  to  sit  next  to  him  at  a  dinner  because  of   his  pro-Boer  views. He  was  involved  in  relief  efforts  in  the  Colony  after  the  war  ended.

Once  in  the  Commons, Percy  was  closely  involved  in  the  new  political  settlement, setting  up  the  Union  of  South  Africa  in  1910.  His  maiden  speech  argued  for  a  reduction  in  the  military   presence  there.  He  also  supported  political  rights  for  the  black  majority  and  was  in  contact  with  the  infant  ANC..

Percy  did  not  support  going  to  war  in  1914  being  unconvinced  by  Grey's  arguments. He  said  Grey's  supporters  "speak  to  us  of  some  vague  fear, some  sort  of  obligation  of  honour  that  impels  us  to  this course."  He  went  on  "  They have  brought  us  to  the  brink  of  disaster  without  our  knowing, and  without  our  being  warned". It  was  "  a  continuation  of  that  old  and  disastrous  system  where  a  few  men  in  charge  of  the  state, wielding  the  whole  force  of  the  state, make  secret  engagements  and  secret  arrangements, carefully  veiled  from  the  knowledge  of  the  people, who  are  as  dumb, driven  cattle  without  a  voice  on  the  question ".

Percy  stood  down  in  1918.

Percy  started  the  Vienna  Emergency  Relief  Fund  in  1919.

Percy  was  an  atheist   and  founded  the  Common  Sense  magazine  to  champion  science  and  reason. He  was  intelligent, open-minded  and  un-ostentatious. He  consistently  refused  honours  and  titles.

He  died  on  a  trip  to  Zurich  in  1937  aged  76.