Page 19 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

43 William PEARSON (1877-1935) (Elected 17.7.1922; President 1933-34; died 16.8.1935 aged 58
whilst still a member.) Chartered surveyor, auctioneer and valuer, estate
agent and certificated Bailiff. Fellow of the Surveyors’ Institution and
Fellow of the Auctioneers’ Institute. He began work as a commercial clerk
but in 1902 set up business on his own account with offices in Priory
Street. He stopped private practice 10 years later when appointed
surveyor and valuer to the Inland Revenue, but resumed again in 1919
after serving with the Royal Engineers during the First World War. The
firm expanded and he opened a second office in Tipton, and was
appointed surveyor to the Midland Counties Mutual Benefit Society. He
was one of the best golfers in the district, a member of both Dudley and Stourbridge clubs, and
captain of the Worcestershire Golf Union 1925-30. He was the organising secretary of the
celebrated Guest Hospital Bazaar of 1925 which raised £14,000. (After his death the firm
continued as William Pearson & Clarke, under the direction of CW Clarke, Rotary member #184.)

44 Matthew Biggar WALKER, FRSA (1873-1950) (Elected 17.7.1922; resigned 16.2.1925.) Fine Art
and Literary Valuer. Honorary adviser to the Dudley Art Committee. Although having ‘The
Studio’ in Wolverhampton Street, Dudley he was more closely connected with Wolverhampton.
His career was very varied. Son of a travelling draper, he was born in Dudley, and by the age of
18 was a school teacher. He then set up his own business in Wolverhampton as a travelling
draper and tailor, following in his father’s footsteps, but returned to teaching of sorts, eventually
becoming a superintendent of night classes at Queen Street Chapel and a Sunday school teacher
at Red Cross Street school (close to Molineux stadium). From the 1910s he became known as
an art dealer, collector, and connoisseur of fine art. Between about 1920 and 1935 he was in
partnership with the Dudley auctioneer Ernest Davies (founder member #6 of the Rotary Club)
as Davies & Walker, but by the start of the last War he was director of a Wolverhampton drug
store and seed shop! From 1922 he was closely associated with Wolverhampton Art Gallery as
a member of its management committee and advisor. He helped build up its collections by
purchase, loans and donations, organised exhibitions, and secured bequests. He performed a
similar role but on a modest scale with the much smaller Dudley Art Gallery. He was a close
friend of the celebrated artist Sir Frank Brangwyn, and organised exhibitions of Brangwyn’s work
at Wolverhampton, Dudley, Liverpool, Sunderland and Hull, many of the items being from his
own extensive collection. He also made many gifts of art works to Wolverhampton, Dudley,
Birmingham and other Art Galleries. In 1928 he purchased the former Bean Car premises in Hall
Street, Dudley and offered them to the Council for use as a market hall. (The offer was evidently
not accepted!) He lived in Dudley until his marriage in 1900 when he moved to Wolverhampton.

45 George William WARING (1861-1933) (Elected 17.7.1922; break in membership 3.3.1930 to
30.3.1931; died Spring 1933 whilst still a member.) Mining engineer, Land and Mine Surveyor;
Member of the Institute of Mining Engineers. He grew up in Tipton, attended Wolverhampton
Grammar School and was apprenticed to a mining engineer in West Bromwich. After obtaining
his Colliery Managers' Certificate at Sandwell Park Colliery (at the age of 23) he became Under-
Manager at Glebe Colliery near Stoke on Trent (1884-91) followed by Manager of Bispham Hall
Colliery near Wigan (1891-95). He moved back to Dudley, establishing a private practice in
Grange Road and then (from 1900 until his death) in Wellington Road. During this period he was
manager of the Thornleigh, Corbyns Hall and Old Level collieries, mining engineer to the
Stourbridge Glazed Brick and Fire Clay Company, and was a member of the South Staffordshire
and East Worcestershire Mines Rescue Association. He was a prominent freemason (member
of the Noah’s Ark Lodge, Tipton), a churchwarden at St James’s Eve Hill, and associated with
Dudley Choral Society and the Boy Scouts Association. A long-time committee member of the
Dudley Institute he was its President in 1932. His wife Elizabeth was one of the first two female
magistrates in Dudley (appointed in 1925).