Page 15 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

31 Frank THEEDAM VIRR (1886-1973) (Associate Member, elected at 1st meeting, 12.6.1922;
resigned 4.3.1929.) Ironmonger. From 1919 he was joint managing director of E C Theedam Ltd
with his uncle Edward Theedam (another founder member of the Rotary Club) and continued to
manage the company after his uncle’s death in 1936. He was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, and
educated at New College prep school, Harrogate before attending Giggleswick public school. He
then qualified as a chartered accountant, and was a partner in the Birmingham practice of
Forrest, Son & Virr from 1912 to May 1917 when he joined his uncle’s firm in Dudley. He was
active in the Dudley Traders Association and the Chamber of Commerce, of which he was
President in 1941-3. His interests included breeding and showing fancy pigeons. He lived in
Dudley until moving to Bromsgrove in the late 1930s.

32 Frank Martin MAYHEW (1873-1924) (Associate Member, elected at 1st
meeting,12.6.1922; died 9.8.1924 aged only 51 whilst still a member.) He
was Commercial Manager with Messrs A Harper, Sons & Bean, Ltd - Bean’s
cars of Tipton. He was made an Associate Member because his colleague
Stanley Greaves, finance director at Beans, also joined the Club as a
founder member (#10).
Frank appears to have joined Bean’s foundry in Tipton from school, at
first as a ‘brass founder’s clerk’ but then for 25 years as a ‘Traveller’ for the
company. During the First World War he became head of the purchasing
department for the firm’s projectile factories in Dudley and Tipton. Following the War he
returned to the motor car division at Tipton as Commercial Manager. Originally from Kings
Norton he lived at various addresses in Birmingham until moving to Kates Hill, Dudley around
the start of the First World War. He was a Dudley Unionist councillor for five years up to his
death; a freemason attached to the Athol Lodge, and a ‘Buff’, member of the Kates Hill Lodge
and Sons of Empire Lodge of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes.

33 Cyril Cassan MESSITER, MA MRCS LRCP (1884-1951) (Elected at 1st
meeting,12.6.1922; membership terminated 19.3.1928 but re-joined in
1936: see #196) Doctor and Surgeon. He was Honorary surgeon at Dudley
Guest Hospital (following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather)
from 1918 until obliged to resign through illness in 1944.
Educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge he gained an MA in
1912 and qualified as a surgeon and physician the following year. He
appears to have joined the Guest Hospital as a surgeon but in 1915 was
called up for War service, which he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps
based at the General Hospital Brighton. He was rapidly promoted to Captain. He then served
as a casualty officer and senior house surgeon at Croydon General Hospital before returning to
Dudley. For the next few years, in addition to his hospital position, he was in partnership with
his father Dr Matthew Arden Messiter (until the latter’s death in July 1922). He was Medical
Officer to Dudley Training College, a Trustee of Dudley Dispensary, Chief Surgeon of the Midland
Counties Mutual Benefit Society and Divisional Surgeon of St John Ambulance Brigade. His home
and surgery were at 3 Ednam Road, Dudley. After his death the contents of the house were
auctioned off but when the porter displayed Lot 34, a rusty 200 year old pistol described as ‘an
attractive but harmless antique’, it went off with a terrific bang and put a bullet into the ceiling!
His son Ian Messiter created the BBC radio panel game Just a Minute.

34 James Douglas MURRAY (1880-1959) (Elected at 1st meeting, 12.6.1922; on his retirement from
business made a Past Service Member 5.10.36; left the club before June 1938.) Garage proprietor
and motor car agent. Managing director of the Station Garage Co. Ltd, Birmingham Road
opposite Dudley Station, ‘the largest and best equipped garage in the district’, distributors and
repairers of Austin and Morris cars and Dennis and Morris commercial vehicles. He joined the