Page 12 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

Volunteers. His interests embraced many good causes: he was a Trustee and board member of
Dudley Guest Hospital for many years up to his death, and as Chairman of the Board in 1925
presided over the hospital’s £10,000 Appeal Fayre; chairman of the Stourbridge & District branch
of the RSPCA; Dudley councillor 1923-26; President of Dudley & District Chamber of Commerce
1933; and a Dudley magistrate from 1934. A side venture was as a director of the Non-
Inflammable Film Company founded in 1927 which pioneered the manufacture and use of
cellulose acetate movie film to replace the highly dangerous celluloid. He was a member of the
Caledonian Club, St James’s Square, London. His home was in Edgbaston until about 1920 when
he moved to Kinver.

23 Edward Charles THEEDAM, JP (1852-1936) (Founder member, elected 22.5.1922; President
1925-26; resigned 26.10.1931.) Ironmonger and Engineer. Founder and
Managing Director of E C Theedam Ltd (‘Theedams’), builders’ and general
ironmongers, manufacturers of hardware and colliery requisites, electrical
engineers, heating engineers, purveyors of china and glass, cutlery,
household appliances, and much more(!), with an extensive retail store at
53 High Street and nearby factory premises. He was a leading member of
the Dudley & District Liberal Association and Dudley councillor 1898-1913
and again briefly from 1921, a prominent member of the Dudley Chamber
of Commerce, a Director of the Dudley, Brierley Hill & District Gas Company
and of the Midland Mutual Plate Glass Co., local Director of the Commercial Union Assurance
Co., and Dudley magistrate from 1906 until his death. He was an active Unitarian, member and
long-time Trustee of the Old Meeting House in Wolverhampton Street, Trustee of Parson’s
Charity, and supporter and later Chairman of the Dudley Temperance Society. During his earlier
years he was a keen sportsman - at rowing, boxing, football, hockey and horse riding - and
supporter of bodies such as the Hockey Club, the Horse Show Society, and the Albrighton Hunt.
He lived in Russell Street and St James’s Road, Dudley before moving to Pedmore in 1927.
Edward was the son of a farmer at Frinton-on-Sea, Essex but the family moved to Yorkshire
when he was a teenager. On leaving school he was an assistant in ironmongers’ businesses in
Scarborough, Oldham and Wakefield before setting up on his own in Sheffield in 1872. He
transferred to Dudley after purchasing Linnell’s ironmongers store in the High Street in 1885.
He also set up a factory in New Mill Street whilst retaining the Orchard Works in Sheffield for
some years. The firm expanded hugely and became a limited company in 1903. His mining and
railway products - railway tubs, air pipes, lamps, signal bells, enamelled signs etc - were sold
throughout the UK and in many countries around the world. The firm’s workshops employed
coppersmiths, blacksmiths, hot water fitters, japanners, plumbers, iron and steel screw cutters,
bell-hangers, electricians, gas fitters, locksmiths, tin-plate sheet workers and machinists.
Edward’s nephew Frank Virr (another founder member of the Rotary Club, #31) became his joint
managing director and secretary in 1919. The New Mill Street factory was sold after the First
World War and larger premises, also called Orchard Works, were bought in Churchfield Street.
Edward was actively involved in the firm’s business almost up to his death on 13.5.1936. For
some decades after, the business continued to thrive but eventually faded away in Dudley about
2004.