Sir Arthur Philip du Cros, 1st Baronet du Cros (26 January 1871 – 28 October 1955) was a British industrialist and politician.

Early life and business career

He was born in Dublin, the third of seven sons of Harvey du Cros

Harvey du Cros

Harvey du Cros was a Conservative Party politician of England. He was the son of Edouard Pierre du Cros and Maria Molloy and was educated at The King's Hospital, Dublin....

. He grew up in modest conditions; his father, later a well-known manufacturer, was at the time only a bookkeeper with an income of £170 a year. He attended a national school in Dublin and then became employed with the civil service at the lowest-paid grade. During 1892 he joined the Pneumatic Tyre and Booth's Cycle Agency Ltd, of which his father was now the chairman, and was made a joint managing director during 1896 when it was first traded as a public company.

In 1895 he married Maude Gooding, the daughter of a Coventry

Coventry

Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...

 watch manufacturer; they had two sons and two daughters before a divorce of 1923.

In 1901 du Cros founded the Dunlop Rubber Company

Dunlop Rubber

Dunlop Rubber was a company based in the United Kingdom which manufactured tyres and other rubber products for most of the 20th century. It was acquired by BTR plc in 1985. Since then, ownership of the Dunlop trade-names has been fragmented.-Early history:...

, converting 400 acres (1.6 km²) of land in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 henceforth known as Fort Dunlop

Fort Dunlop

Fort Dunlop , is the common name of the original tyre factory and main office of Dunlop Rubber in the Erdington district of Birmingham, England. It was established in 1917, and by 1954 the entire factory area employed 10,000 workers...

 for the production and manufacture of tyres. Dunlop subsequently purchased the goodwill and trading rights of du Cros' Pneumatic Tyre Company and diversified into making other rubber products in addition to tyres. To ensure the company's supply of rubber du Cros secured plantations in Malaya

British Malaya

British Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...

 and Ceylon

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

; by 1917 Dunlop owned about 60000 acres (24,281.2 ha) of rubber-producing land.

Political career

In 1906 du Cros entered politics, unsuccessfully contesting the seat of Bow & Bromley

Bow and Bromley (UK Parliament constituency)

Bow and Bromley was a constituency in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Located in the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar in London, it was created by the Redistribution of Seats Act for the 1885 general election and returned one Member of Parliament until it was abolished by the 1950 general...

 as a Conservative

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 candidate, a seat to which his brother was elected during 1910. During 1908 he was elected Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Hastings

Hastings (UK Parliament constituency)

Hastings was a parliamentary constituency in Sussex. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom until the 1885 general election, when its representation was reduced to one member....

, a position his father had immediately before.

During 1909 he formed (and was the director of) the Parliamentary Aerial Defence Committee to ensure funding for military aeronautical development, of which he was a strong proponent. During the First World War he worked for the Ministry of Munitions on an honorary basis, buying two motorised ambulance convoys with his own money and helping form an infantry battalion, being a former captain of the Royal Warwickshires and for some years being the honorary colonel of the 8th battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. During 1916 he was created a baronet

Baronet

A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...

. He continued to represent Hastings until 1918, when he was elected as a Member of Parliament for Clapham

Clapham (UK Parliament constituency)

Clapham was a borough constituency in South London which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom...

, a position he resigned 4 years later.

House attacked by suffragettes

On April 14th 1913 Du Cros' home at St Leonards was burnt down by suffragettes angry at his opposition to votes for women . Contemporary newsreels reported the estimated cost of the damage to be £10,000.

Later life

His later career featured much financial impropriety. He found it difficult to distinguish between personal and company assets, using company funds to sponsor family investments and appointing family members to senior position without regard for merit. He also participated in financial manipulation as a close associate of James White, a financier who specialised in share rigging and whose actions left Dunlop close to bankruptcy in 1921. Du Cros had already lost influence within the company and was dismissed after the 1921 depression.

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