Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Dale, David
DALE, Sir DAVID, first baronet (1829–1906), ironmaster, born on 11 Dec. 1829 at Moorshedabad, Bengal, was younger of two sons (in the family of three children) of David Dale (of the East India Company's service), judge of the city court there, by his wife Ann Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. George Douglas of Aberdeen, who was married at Calcutta on her seventeenth birthday. His great-uncle was David Dale [q. v.], the Glasgow banker and philanthropist, whose daughter married the socialist Robert Owen [q. v.] and was mother of Robert Dale Owen [q. v.]. David's elder brother, James Douglas (1820–1865). joined the Indian army on the Madras establishment, and became lieutenant-colonel. The father died on board the Providence on 23 June 1830, during a voyage home with his wife and children. Mrs. Dale, while on a journey with her children to New Lanark to visit her kindred, was detained at Darlington by an accident to the mail coach, and received such kindness from members of the Society of Friends of that town that she returned and made the place her home. After four years' probation she was in 1841 received into the Friends' community. She died in 1879.
Dale was educated privately at Edinburgh, Durham, and Stockton. Brought up among Friends, he early displayed unusual steadfastness of purpose and sobriety of judgment. His adult career began in the office of the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company, and at the age of twenty-three he was appointed secretary to the Middlesbrough and Guisborough section of the line. After six years in that position he entered in 1858 into partnership with Mr. W. Bouch and became lessee of the Shildon Locomotive Works. Henceforth his activities rapidly expanded. He was concerned with the formation of the Consett Iron Co., of which he subsequently became managing director and chairman. In 1866 he embarked on extensive shipbuilding enterprises in co-operation with Richardson, Denton, Duck & Co. of Stockton, Denton, Grey & Co. of Hartlepool, and Thomas Richardson & Sons, Hartlepool, who combined together with a view to amalgamation. Dale became vice-chairman of this ambitious undertaking, but the union was not successful, and the companies reverted shortly af tenvards to their former independent positions. Dale retained an interest in the two first-named concerns. He was also managing partner of J. W. Pease & Co., later Pease & Partners Ltd., and chairman of companies working iron ore mines near Bilbao. In 1881 he became a director of the North Eastern Railway Company, having previously served as director of the Stockton and Darlington railway, and on the formation of the Dunderland Iron Ore Company in 1902 he was appointed chairman. He was an active member of the Durham Coal Owners' Association and of the Cleveland Mine Owners' Association. Dale owes his main distinction to his work as pioneer in applying the principle of arbitration to industrial disputes. The first board of arbitration was formed in connection with the iron trade of the north of England in March 1869, and Dale was its first president. The success of the experiment was chiefly due to the tact, firmness, and discrimination of its president. 'Its inauguration ushered in a millennium of peace and goodwill between employers and employed compared with the chaotic and demoralising state of matters that previously existed' (Jeans, Pioneers of the Cleveland Iron Trade, p. 211). In recognition of Dale's services to the board he was publicly presented in 1881 with an address and a portrait painted at a cost of 500 guineas by W. W. Ouless. This is now in the possession of his son at Park Close, Englefield Green, Surrey. His high position and influence in the industrial world of the north led to his appointment on several royal commissions, amongst which were those on trade depression (1885–6); on mining royalties (1889–93); and on labour (1891–4). At the Berlin labour conference of 1890, convened at the instance of the German emperor, he was one of the representatives of Great Britain, and during the sittings he received marked attention from the emperor and from Bismarck. He had helped to found the Iron and Steel Institute in 1869, and acted as hon. treasurer from that date until 1895, when he was elected president. He was created a baronet in the same year.
In politics Sir David was a liberal. His business interests monopolised his attention, and he declined to contest a seat in parliament. The University of Durham made him hon. D.C.L. in 1895. In 1888 he became high sheriff for Durham. He died at York on 28 April 1906, and was buried at Darlington. In his honour the 'Sir David Dale chair of economics' was instituted at Armstrong University, Newcastle-on-Tyne, in 1909, as well as a memorial lectureship on labour problems at Darlington; the first lecture was delivered by Sir Edward Grey on 28 Oct. 1910. Dale was twice married: (1) on 27 Jan. 1853 to Annie Backhouse (d. 1886), only daughter and heiress of Edward Robson and widow of Henry Whitwell of Kendal by her he had a son, James Backhouse, who succeeded him in the baronetcy, and one daughter; and (2) on 2 Aug. 1888 to Alice Frederica, (d. 1902), daughter of Sir Frederick Acclom Milbank, Bart.
[Pioneers of the Cleveland Iron Trade, by J. S. Jeans, Middlesbrough, 1875; Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, lxix.; Sir David Dale, inaugural lecture by Sir Edward Grey, with a Memoir by Howard Pease, 1910; Biographical Mag., June 1889; The Times, 30 April 1906; private information.]