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SIR HAROLD BOULTON
BUSINESS, PHILANTHROPHY
AND SONG WRITING
Sir Harold Boulton, second baronet, business man, philanthropist, and song writer, died in London on Saturday after a long illness.
He was 75 years of age.
Among other activities in his long career, he was a hospital chairman and founder of clubs and institutions, lyric writer and editor, ovate bard of Wales, and a director of the Royal Academy of Music (1931).
In spite of his many other interests, he, always found time to devote himself to charitable work, and he was a special friend of the East End, where he will be remembered as the founder of the People's Palace, of which he was chairman.
Harold Edwin Boulton, who was the eldest son of Sir Samuel Boulton, first baronet, was educated at Harrow (Small Houses and The Park) and at Balliol College, Oxford.
When at school he was devoted to music and was for some time a leader of the school choir.
At Balliol, under Jowett, he continued his interest in music and turned also to literature.
With Rennell Rodd (now Lord Rennell) he founded and edited a magazine of contemporary poetry.
In 1881 he was proxime accessit for the Newdigate Prize Poem.
On leaving Oxford, he toured Canada and then entered the family firm of Burt, Boulton and Haywood, who owned timber and railway sleeper works and chemical manufactories.
Boulton was among the original band of young Oxford men who founded the Oxford House Settlement in Bethnal Green, and with the Rev. the Hon. James Adderlay (then a layman) he was joint founder of the Federation of Working Men's Social Clubs, and from 1895 to 1930 he was president of the federation.
During the time he was a resident at Oxford House he founded, with Mr. Charles Bethune, the House of Shelter at Bow, where the homeless poor could find shelter, and obtain assistance in getting employment.
In 1932 he was chairman of the Mendicity Society.
In 1903 he started, with his father, the Dominion Tar and Chemical Company, Nova Scotia, which he visited once or twice a year until 1918, when he became chairman.
In 1929 the Canadian works, which consisted of distilleries, creosoting plants, and five depots throughout Canada, were disposed of to a Canadian group.
For several years, Sir. Harold was president of the Associated Tar Distillers.
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He was also a member of the council of the Association of British Chemical Manufacturers since it's formation in 1916; president of the British Wood-Preserving Association; and a director of the British Nigerian Timber Company, Limited.
The writer of many songs and lyrics, among the best known of which were the "Skye Boat song" and "Glorius Devon", he was also editor and part writer of "Songs of the North", "Songs of Four Nations", and "Our National Songs".
The original cause of his study of Scottish and Highland folk songs was an Oxford reading party in Scotland in his undergraduate days, and the work that was then begun in the preservation of such songs and traditional music has grown until today the interest in their preservation is widespread.
From 1906 to 1926 he was honorary secretary of the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association; from 1909 to 1914 honorary Commissioner for Canada of the St. John Ambulance Association; and in 1910 he assisted the then Lady Dudley to organize bush nursing in Australia.
For one who had extensive business and artistic interests, it will always be remembered that he spared neither time nor energy in the carrying out of duties of the many offices which he was called upon to fill.
He served as a Vice President and chairman of the Queen's Institute for Nurses; as chairman of the National Memorial to Queen Alexandra (1926-28); and on the committee of the London Hospital from 1896 to 1921.
Formerly holding the rank of captain in The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders (Militia), he took up military service in the war, holding the same rank in the City of London Yeomanry, Rough Riders, from 1914 to 1917.
In 1903, he was made M.V,O., being advanced to C.V.O. ten years later; and in 1918 he received the C.B.E.
He was a Knight of Justice of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in England.
His father died in 1918, when he succeeded as second baronet.
He was twice married.
His first wife, Adelaide Lucy, third daughter of Colonel D. D. Davidson, of Tullock Castle, Dingwall, died in 1926.
By her he had one son and one daughter.
The son, Denis Duncan Harold Owen, born in 1892, now suceeds to the title.
The late baronet's second wife, by whom he is survived, was the widow of Mr. R. C. S. Moody, of Montreal.
There will be a requiem Mass at Farm Street Church tomorrow at 11 a.m.
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