Page 114 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

manufacturers of specialist roller bearing crankshafts, which he established in 1953. The firm
was developing the Alpha Centuri racing motor bike when it was taken over in 1964 by E & H P
Smith, a Birmingham based engineering group. Shortly afterwards Harry was appointed
managing Director of its subsidiary company Enfield Precision Engineers Ltd, which made high
precision components for the aerospace and guided missile industries as well as the 750cc Royal
Enfield Interceptor motorcycle. The company’s factory was underground in a disused Bath
Stone mine at Westwood near Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. To be near the business he moved
home permanently from Kingswinford to Trowbridge in 1965 but continued to manage Alpha
Bearings. Enfield Precision became unprofitable and was closed in 1970 so Harry bought back
Alpha Bearings from the Smith Group and resumed trading as a private company. He remained
in control until his death in 1984. (The firm remained in the family with his son Max becoming
Managing Director, but was wound up in 2013.) Harry grew up in Oldbury where his early career
was as a maintenance engineer and electrician. He was a very competent bookmaker’s tic-tac
man and could calculate sweepstake odds in his head. He claimed to have learned these skills
helping his father, also called Harry, who was a pawnbroker and general dealer in Oldbury.

370 Bernard Richard SMITH (1913-1994) (Inducted 7.9.1959; left May 1968 on transfer to Essex.)
Government - Postal Service. He was Head Postmaster of Dudley, based at the General Post
Office in Wolverhampton Street and living at Kingswinford. A native of Shrewsbury he started
as a postman at the age of 17 and progressed through the ranks as a sorting clerk and
telegraphist, and mechanic, before achieving a managerial role. He came to Dudley from
Whitchurch, Shropshire, where he was a member of the Rotary Club, and left on being promoted
to Head Postmaster of Ilford & Barking. He was instrumental in forming the Dudley Philatelic
Society: he placed an appeal in the 23 September 1960 edition of Stamp Collecting for collectors
in the area to contact him to re-form a Philatelic Society. Just 5 days later an inaugural meeting
took place (at which he was elected Secretary). The society continues today, more than 50 years
later. On his initiative, for the year 1963/4 all letters posted in Dudley - 24 million of them -
were franked with the slogan ‘Dudley for Zoo & Shopping’.

371 Percy Sadler (‘Jim’) STOCKTON (1906-1960) (inducted 4.1.1960 but died only months later, on
9.9.1960 aged 54.) Automobile Retailing. He was with Day & Mansell Limited, motor dealers
and repairers of Hall Street, Dudley, most likely as a director. He lived in Birmingham all his life,
first in Smethwick, then Harborne and latterly in Edgbaston. Before and during the last War he
was an officer in the Territorial Army, Royal Artillery Anti-Aircraft Brigade, rising to the rank of
Major. He suffered a premature death while staying at a sporting estate in Inverness-shire. He
was presumably known as ‘Jim’ to distinguish him from his father who had the same names. His
son David succeeded him in the business and joined the Rotary club in 1962 (member #380).

372 Theodore (‘Theo’) EMMS (1923-2018) (inducted 4.1.1960; left 19.10.1964.) Steel Sheets
Distributing. Founder and for many years Managing Director and then Chairman of Theodore
Emms Limited of Simms Lane, Netherton, steel sheet stockholders and shearers. He was also
MD of various subsidiary and connected companies. He started in the family scrap metal
business I Emms & Son Ltd in Netherton before establishing the steel stockholding business in
about 1951. It shared premises in Simms Lane with I Emms & Son until moving to premises in
Pear Tree Lane, Dudley and Cox’s Lane, Old Hill about 1965, and also established depots in
London and Warrington. About the same time he moved home from Oakham Road, Dudley to
Lower Penn, Wolverhampton where he lived until his death. His father Richard was a member
of the club (see#194).