All very noble, but even today little is known about Sir William’s background and business dealings; he probably wanted it that way. Dunn had been labelled pathologically mean, a social climber who married for money, sold strong drink to the natives and did damn all once elected to Parliament. His wife contested his will and won, but it should be said that the evidence for most of these accusations is rather weak.

And it rumbles on down the years. Only last year a petition was put before the Scottish Parliament about wrangles over Dunn Square in Paisley, which he gifted to the town in 1894 ‘to be kept for the enjoyment of all the inhabitants’.

Whatever he was, whatever good he did, or ill, no one can deny that the benefits from the decisions made by Sir William Dunn’s trustees have been considerably greater than they could have hoped for or that Sir William himself might have imagined, before his death in 1912.

The development of penicillin by Professor Howard Florey’s team in the Oxford ‘Dunn School’ is arguably the most important medical advance of the 20th century. It brought Florey and Ernst Chain Nobel Prizes for their work; in all, 10 Nobel Prizes have been made over the years to people working in establishments founded by, or benefiting from Sir William’s Trust.

But William Dunn had no direct connections with medicine. He belonged to that Victorian generation of Scottish pioneers who went overseas to make their fortunes and yet devoted the money made to numerous charitable purposes, mainly at home in the UK.

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