Page 100 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

313 Alfred Henry Keeling BLOXAM (1905-1970) (Inducted 24.7.1950; left 1.4.1955.) Wholesale
Bakery. He was Sales Manager and probably also a director of T Woodhouse (Dudley) Ltd, which
had bakeries in Tower Street, Wellington Road, and Bond Street, plus bread and pastry shops in
Hall Street and Stone Street and a Tea Room in Hall Street. However from 1942 to 1947, he was
a partner in his own bakery business - Bloxam & Sims - which must have been taken over by or
merged with the longer established Woodhouse firm. Bloxam & Sims owned the Wellington
Road and Stone Street premises, and also opened shops in Bridgnorth and Oldbury.
Alfred was brought up in Rangoon, Burma where his parents were residents. At the age of
10 he was sent to England with his two older brothers to attend Bedford School, the
independent public boarding school, and stayed there until he was 18. In his last two years he
played in the school rugby 1st XV. His early career is not known but he was living at Amblecote
when he married in 1932, aged 27. Soon afterwards he and his wife set up home in Rangoon
whilst retaining a property in England, first at Amblecote, then Pedmore, and then an apartment
in London. During this period he was described as a ‘Trading Surveyor’. It appears that it was
the onset of the War that made the couple return to England and set up in Dudley. Their home
was in St James’s Road until 1946, then at Stourton, and finally at Pattingham.

314 Thomas (‘Tom’) Edward DUDLEY (1903-1980) (Inducted 6.11.1950; resigned 30.6.1978.) Iron
Founding. Managing Director of Thomas Dudley Ltd, based at the
Dauntless Works, Birmingham New Road, Dudley. The firm was
established in 1920 by Tom’s father Thomas, initially as general iron-
founders making municipal and builders’ merchants’ castings such as
manhole and drain covers, brackets and parts for fires and stoves. The
foundry was at Groveland Road, Dudley Port until 1934 when it moved
to its present location. From the late 1930s the company was heavily
involved in the war effort, and became well known for its cast iron toilet
cisterns. Tom left school at 14 and gained experience in four engineering
works and a foundry managed by his father before moving to his father’s new firm in 1920 as a
‘booking clerk’ and becoming a director two years later. In 1942, Tom took over running the
company, jointly with his younger brother Harold, after their father fell from a horse and
suffered serious brain injuries which confined him to a mental hospital for a more than a year.
The firm expanded and during the 1950s established a plastics division making WC cisterns.
There is now a Thomas Dudley group of companies supplying metal and plastic plumbing and
water industry fittings in addition to a wide range of construction industry, automotive and
ornamental castings and bathroom products such as cisterns, syphons and flush valves. The firm
is still owned and managed by the Dudley family: Tom’s brother succeeded him for a time as
Managing Director and their sister Ethel joined them as a director too, then their respective sons
Ivor and John followed as joint MDs, and in turn John’s son Martin has maintained the role. Tom
lived at various addresses in Dudley - in Birmingham Road, St James’s Road and The Broadway -
before spending his last 3 years in Kingswinford. For many years he was a racehorse owner.

315 Ernest John GARD (1900-1980) (Inducted 20.11.1950; left early 1964 owing to pressure of
business.) Civil Engineering (Consulting). He was a Quantity Surveyor (and qualified municipal
engineer and surveyor), partner in the practice of Harris & Gard, architects, town planners and
engineers of Wolverhampton Street, Dudley and Hagley Road, later Greenfield Crescent,
Birmingham. He grew up in north Somerset and started work as a bank clerk before serving
briefly as a wireless operator in the Royal Air Force towards the end of the First World War. He
was then articled to the District Council Surveyor of Williton, Somerset, his home town. He came
to Dudley in the late 1920s, having worked for a time in Leicester. He appears to have been
assistant to Dudley’s Borough Engineer before joining architect John Seymour Harris in
partnership in 1947. The work and prestige of the firm grew rapidly, largely through the efforts
of Harris. For example in 1952 it was commissioned by the Ethiopian government to plan a new