Page 117 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

Duties Branch of the RAF Volunteer Reserve, achieving the rank of Squadron Leader. He lived in
Stafford until 1954, and then in Wombourne for 30 years before moving to Stourton. His
younger brother Geoff, MD of Baggeridge Brick, joined the club in 1963 (see #393).

382 Charles (‘Charlie’) BAXTER (1915-1982) (Inducted 4.4.1962; died in spring
1982 whilst still a member.) Hairdressing (Men). Proprietor of Charles
Baxter Hairdressing with a salon in Tower Street, Dudley. He bought the
established business of Frederick Clarke in 1951 and changed it to his own
name four or five years later. During the 1960s and ’70s he opened
additional salons in Pensnett and Sedgley. Charles was born and raised
in the Mansfield area. He started hairdressing on leaving school at the
age of 14, and worked in Nottingham before coming to Dudley just before
the last War. He served in the Royal Artillery during the War on
searchlight duty, mostly on the south coast close to the British cross-Channel guns: he said the
boom of the cannons made him deaf. He was later transferred to more secret work, thought to
be radar. His son Colin continues the hairdressing business.

383 Philip Eric STEATHAM (1932-2017) (Inducted 3.12.1962; left 19.10.1964.) Printing - Commercial.
He was with Poultney Phoenix Press Ltd of Newhall Street, Dudley, perhaps as a Manager rather
than a Director because he left Phoenix in 1966 to set up his own printing business, Philip
Steatham & Co, in Salop Street. The business moved to Mill Bank, Sedgley in 1969 and about 20
years later to Planks Lane, Wombourne where ‘Steatham Printers’ continued until being
voluntarily wound up in 2013. Originally from West Bromwich, he lived at The Straits, Lower
Gornal during the 1960s and then in Seisdon.

384 Eric GATER (1919-1971) (Joined and left during 1962-63.) A civil servant, probably a Post Office
official. He is mentioned in the club’s 1962-3 annual report as having joined during that year,
but not in the 1963-4 report as having left, so it looks as though he was a member for just a few
months. He was brought up in the Congleton area of Cheshire, but from the age of 20 lived in
and around Birmingham, at Yardley, Harborne, Kings Norton and Sutton Coldfield. He died aged
only 51 whilst on holiday in North Wales.

385 George Reginald (‘Reg’) HACKETT (1914-1990) (Inducted 8.4.1963; left during 1973/74.)
Education - Grammar Technical School. Headmaster of the Sir Gilbert Claughton Grammar
School, Blowers Green, Dudley from 1961, probably until 1973 when there was a reorganisation
of secondary education in the borough. Originally from Halesowen he attended Birmingham
University where he gained a BA and Diploma in Education, and then an MA at Cambridge. He
joined the RAF as an education officer in 1939 and stayed in the Service throughout the war,
with the rank of Pilot Officer. Afterwards he held teaching posts in Dorset and Brighton before
returning to Halesowen, to the College of Further Education, in 1955. He taught there and at
Tividale Comprehensive School for only brief periods before being appointed Deputy
Headmaster at Rowley Regis Grammar School in 1957. He was there four years before taking
up the Dudley post. He lived at Halesowen from the 1950s, moving to Sedgley for his last few
years.