Nugent, John Dillon (1869–1940), politician and insurance manager, was born 22 December 1869 in Keady, Co. Armagh, the son of John Nugent, auctioneer and publican, and his wife Sarah (née Dillon). He moved to Dublin in 1890. Employed as assistant superintendent with the Prudential Insurance Co., he resigned that position in 1905 to become manager of the British Legal Assurance Co. in Dublin. The company's success under his management led to his appointment as a divisional manager of the Britannic Insurance Co. when it absorbed British Legal. Initiated into the AOH at age 16, he was also a founder member of the first UIL branch in Dublin and gradually worked his way to the top in both organisations, becoming a member of the UIL's standing committee in 1904 and national secretary of the AOH (Board of Erin) in 1905. Under his secretaryship the order became much more disciplined, organised, and centralised. From 1905 it was dominated by Nugent and his close friend Joseph Devlin (qv), both of whom ensured the order's loyalty to the Irish parliamentary party. He also used the order to intimidate the party's opponents, especially suffragists, trade unionists, and O'Brienites – the attacks on William O'Brien (qv) at the infamous UIL ‘baton convention’ in 1909 were orchestrated by Nugent, and he took a strong stance against the striking workers during the 1913 Dublin lock-out. When the AOH was recognised under the 1911 national insurance act, he gave up his job to become its national insurance secretary and was responsible for the huge growth in the order's membership resulting from the insurance scheme it operated. In 1911 he published The AOH and its critics, setting out the order's principal aim as the destruction of the ‘protestant ascendancy’. From 1914 to 1916 he was on the provisional committee of the Redmondite National Volunteers. A poor law guardian for Dublin's Arran Quay ward (1908–20) and a councillor on Dublin corporation (1913–20), in 1915 he defeated Labour's Thomas Farren (qv) in the Dublin College Green by-election, which resulted from the death of J. P. Nannetti (qv). In 1918 he was defeated in Dublin St Michan's by Sinn Féin's Michael Staines (qv). Elected as a nationalist candidate to the first Northern Ireland parliament for Armagh in 1921, he was surprisingly defeated in the same constituency in 1925 because of his ‘failure to repudiate “the Belfast parliament” sufficiently’ (Phoenix, 444, n. 193).
Having retired from politics, he concentrated on his insurance business in the 1920s. In 1917 he established the Irish Industrial Collecting Society, which became the Irish Life and General Assurance Co. in 1923 and soon afterwards acquired a stake in the Hearts of Oak Assurance Co. (London), of which he served as managing director from 1924 till Irish Life disposed of its interest in 1932. With the amalgamation of insurance companies in the Irish Free State in 1936, he lost his position as chairman of Irish Life. After partition, the AOH's insurance section was similarly divided between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State, with Nugent remaining as secretary of both parts till 1933. The southern section was then absorbed into a larger unified society under the national health insurance act, and the Northern Ireland government forced his resignation from the northern section on the grounds that he did not live there. He was a member of the advisory board to the Irish Insurance Co.; a founder, fellow and executive member of the faculty of insurance; and held a number of chairmanships – Associated Trading Co. Ltd; Silica Industries Ltd; Cloyne Collodial Clay Co. Ltd; Messrs O'Leary & Co. Ltd; and Mineral Properties Ltd. During the 1920s and 1930s he continued as national secretary of the AOH, presiding over its decline. In Dublin he lived at 70 Dalymount and 272 North Circular Road, with his wife Mary (née Nolan), three sons, and three daughters. He died 1 March 1940 in Dublin, leaving an estate of £5,720, and was succeeded as national secretary of the AOH by his son James.