Patrick, Duncan

Patrick Duncan born 1918 in Parktown, Johannesburg, was the son of Sir Patrick Duncan, politician and later Governor General of South Africa. Duncan was educated first in South Africa and later in England, at Winchester and Balliol College Oxford. He visited Germany in 1938 and spent three weeks in Arbeitdienst voluntary labour camp, as well as coming into contact with the anti-Nazi opposition group, the Kreisau circle. Both experiences he later claimed had a profound influence on him. After being rejected for military service he joined the colonial service in Basutoland in 1941 where he served as district officer before becoming Judicial Commissioner in 1951. In 1947 he married Cynthia Ashley Cooper (now Lady Bryan). In 1948 Duncan was sent on a colonial service 'Devonshire' course in the London School of Economics where, at his own request, he studied Marxism under Harold Laski. By 1952, Duncan had decided to involve himself in South African politics. Three factors were especially important in influencing this decision. First, Working in Basutoland, he had developed a profound horror of racism. Secondly he had become deeply influenced by the theories of Gandhi, and had realised that for the African majority in South Africa constitutional politics were meaningless and hopeless. The final factor was an intense feeling of personal destiny, which was reinforced by a visionary religious conviction.

On resigning from the Colonial Service, Duncan and his family moved over the border to the Orange Free State. In November 1952 the ANC and the South African Indian Congress agreed to the participation in their defence campaign. Duncan with Manilal, son of Gandhi, led a procession into Germiston and was arrested. He was sentenced to three months imprisonment for breaking the law requiring whites to posses a permit before visiting an African location; but served only two weeks of his sentence, as ill health forced him to pay a fine in lieu of the remainder. At this point he was working closely with the congress movement, but soon considerable mutual distrust was to develop as a result of his suspicions that the ANC was being manipulated by former members of the (banned) South African Communist Party.

In 1955 Duncan joined the South African Liberal Party within which he was to become a radicalising influence. He evoked antipathy from its more conservative leaders, some of whom were in any case hostile to him because of his attempt in 1953 to challenge, on the basis of African Nationalism, a senate seat held by William Ballinger, the liberal trade unionist. Not withstanding their misgivings, Duncan worked as a party national organiser throughout 1956 and 1957. He also remained in close contact with the developing national movement in Basutoland and, in particular, with Chief Leabua Jonathan.

In 1958 the Duncan’s moved to Cape Town so that Duncan could edit the Liberal Party Newspaper, Contact which was aimed at an African readership. Contact, a fortnightly tabloid, became a vehicle for his radicalism and his hostility to communism. Though it aroused considerable resentment for such attacks as the one made on Luthuli (for allegedly allowing the ANC to be dominated by the communists) as well as its advocacy of an immediate unqualified mass franchise which alarmed the more conservative members of the Liberal Party) it did have a considerable impact. This was achieved at least partly through its identification with African nationalist movements throughout the continent. Duncan represented the Liberal Part at the All African People’s conference at Accra in 1958.

Fifteen months later this sympathy for nationalism, as well as his feelings about communism, led Duncan to support the Pan African Congress anti pass campaign. In particular he played a crucial role in Cape Town during the negotiations between (PAC) and the police. The defeat of the campaign and the banning of the African political movements contributed to Duncan’s growing disillusionment with non-violence. This attitude did not crystallise until 1962, by which time he had been served with a banning order. Defying this order, Duncan drove to Basutoland where he set up as a trader. In early 1963 he resigned from the Liberal Party and joined the Pan African Congress.

As a representative to PAC Duncan visited America to try and affect US policy on South Africa; he was still, at this stage, very pro American, and he received some encouragement from members of the Kennedy administration. In July 1963 he addressed the UN Special Committee on Apartheid. In 1964 he was sent to Tanzania to investigate financial malpractices at the PAC office in Dar es Salaam. In the same year he was appointed PAC representative in Algeria, which was at that time providing military training for PAC recruits. However, tensions within the movement led to his dismissal in 1965, though he remained a PAC member, and he was able to remain in Algeria, working in Constantine for an American Christian relief organisation. It was then that he contracted a blood disease, aplastic anaemia, from which he died in 1967.

Reference: A Guide to the Southern African Archives in the University of York (1979).

From the guide to the The Papers of Patrick Duncan (1918-1967), 1926-1967, (Borthwick Institute, University of York)