Thomas Patton | |
Office: | High Sheriff of Belfast |
Term Start: | 1992 |
Term End: | 1993 |
Predecessor: | Joe Coggle |
Successor: | Jim Walker |
Office1: | Lord Mayor of Belfast |
Deputy1: | Ted Ashby |
Term Start1: | 1982 |
Term End1: | 1983 |
Predecessor1: | Grace Bannister |
Successor1: | Alfie Ferguson |
Office2: | Member of Belfast City Council |
Constituency2: | Victoria |
Term Start2: | 15 May 1985 |
Term End2: | 20 October 1993 |
Predecessor2: | New district |
Successor2: | Alan Crowe |
Constituency3: | Belfast Area B |
Term Start3: | 30 May 1973 |
Term End3: | 15 May 1985 |
Predecessor3: | New district |
Successor3: | District abolished |
Birth Date: | 27 July 1914 |
Birth Place: | Belfast, Northern Ireland |
Death Date: | 20 October 1993 |
Party: | Ulster Unionist Party |
Thomas William Saunderson Patton OBE (27 July 1914 – 20 October 1993), often known as Tommy Patton, was an Ulster unionist politician.
Patton grew up in Belfast, where he attended the Templemore Avenue School. He worked at Harland and Wolff for twenty-nine years from 1932, when he moved to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. He was elected to Belfast City Council for the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) at the 1973 local election. He retired in 1982, but continued to sit on the council, serving as Lord Mayor of Belfast that year. He was appointed as High Sheriff of Belfast for 1992/3.[1]
Patton has been described by journalist Jim McDowell as an example of a "cornerstone of what the unionist working class vote was".[2] Sinn Féin councillor Máirtín Ó Muilleoir notes Patton's malapropisms, giving an example of "the police are no detergent against the IRA".[3] Another example was when he told a journalist that the City Hall would be painted in durex paint, rather dulux paint.
A park in east Belfast is named in Patton's memory.[4]