Page 144 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

483 Bernard John Joseph PEARSALL, MBE (1923-1999) (Inducted 18.9.1978; left in 1987/88.) Import
& Export service. He traded on his own, with the assistance of his wife
Mabel as co-director, under various company names - Dudley Import &
Export Agency Limited, Dimpex Limited, and Bernard Pearsall Marketing
Limited - from offices in upper High Street, Dudley and storage premises
in Peartree Lane. Latterly he did most of his business in Arab countries.
Much of Bernard’s career was in electrical engineering: he started straight
from school at 16 as an electrical engineering draughtsman. Through the
1960s he was Manager of the Export Division of Relite Electric Ltd at
Groveland Road, Tipton. Relite, or Revo Electric Co. Limited, was one of
the country’s largest manufacturers of industrial and domestic electrical equipment, including
street lighting, switchgear, fans, cookers and domestic appliances. Bernard was evidently very
successful because in June 1968 he was awarded an MBE ‘For services to Export’. He was also
the inventor of an improved method of constructing Dynamo-Electric Machines, for which the
company obtained a patent in 1969. The Revo name disappeared in the late 1960s as the
company was absorbed into its parent, Duport. Bernard may have set up on his own at that
time. He lived in Dudley throughout his life.

484 John James TONKINSON (1930-2010) (Inducted 2.10.1978; left in 1982/83.) Police service. Chief
Superintendent of ‘J’ Division, West Midlands Police covering the Borough
of Dudley and based at the Central Police Station, New Street, Dudley. He
held the post for 10 years before retiring in about 1985. He was brought
up in Acocks Green, Birmingham, and started his career attached to
Steelhouse Lane Police Station in the centre of the city. He was a
Superintendent there when the Birmingham pub bombings of 21
November 1974 took place on his patch. He was on his way home, but
listening to the police radio and following the events leading up to the
explosions. He returned to the scene and helped recover someone from
one of the wrecked pubs, but in doing so sustained a back injury that severely affected him for
years. He appears to have served only in Birmingham before coming to Dudley. At about the
same time he moved home to Romsley near Halesowen but following his wife’s death in 2002
moved to Sandness in the Shetland Islands to be with his daughter.

485 Robert (‘Bob’) J David MILNER (1946- ) (Inducted 2.10.1978; left
Jan.1980.) Dentistry. Partner in the dental practice Milner & Hanke
based at The Briars, Trinity Road, Dudley. He grew up in Stourbridge
then studied at London University. He started practising at Dudley in
Lloyds Bank Chambers, Wolverhampton Street about 1975, presumably
with his wife who is also a qualified dentist. He teamed up with Bill
Hanke and they opened the Trinity Road surgery in 1979 or ’80, soon
followed by another at West Hagley. He was living at Romsley near
Halesowen but moved to West Hagley in 1980. He withdrew from the
partnership in the mid 1990s and moved to Jersey with his wife Ciaran. Although she continues
to practise in St Helier Bob retired from dentistry and became the island’s largest free-range egg
producer and an asparagus grower. He was owner and managing director of ‘Happy Hens’ farm
at Grouville, with 9000 chickens producing 6000 eggs a day, from 2001 until 2009 when the
business was sold.

486 Robin Edwin WINMILL (1940- ) (Inducted 29.1.1979; left 25.1.1980.) Departmental Stores. He
was Manager of British Home Stores, Market Place, Dudley from about 1974 until early 1980
when he was transferred to the company’s Middlesborough branch. He therefore moved home
from Sedgley to Guisborough, near Middlesborough. Eight years later he was posted to