Page 20 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

46 John Hall SMITH (1852?- ) (Elected 31.7.1922; resigned 19.5.1924.) Retail tobacconist. In about
1920 he took over an existing tobacconist’s shop in Dudley High Street and confectioner’s next
door but remained there only until 1928. In October 1923 he was assaulted and robbed of his
wallet containing £35 as he and his wife boarded a train at Dudley Port to go on holiday. The
four ‘well dressed, respectable-looking’ perpetrators were caught and each sentenced to three
years penal servitude. Little else is known about him. He appears to have been born in
Sunderland and spent his early career in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

47 Benjamin William (‘Will’) Francis WHITTAKER, known as WF Whittaker (1875-1958) (Elected
31.7.1922; resigned 2.7.1923.) Electrical engineer, but qualified also as a mechanical and a
structural engineer. Director of Whittaker Bros. Ltd, electrical engineers, founded in 1900 and
continuing to the present day. Although the firm was named after himself and his brother John,
at first they were Managers rather than the owners. The original investor-directors were Watkin
Jenkins, tailor, and T G Marsh, dynamite agent and mining equipment supplier. Perhaps it was
because of the latter that Will became promoter and Managing Director of a short-lived
speculative venture to establish Gondar Tin Mines in Portugal (1926-28). For most of its history
the firm had retail premises in Wolverhampton Street. During and for a few years after the
Second World War, in addition to electrical goods it sold glassware and crockery. Will lived in
Dudley all his life and was closely associated with the Wesley United Methodist Church,
Wolverhampton Street. He was a freemason in Godson Lodge, Oldbury and also held high office
in the Provincial Grand Lodge of Staffordshire.

48 Walter Henry WOOD (1863-1931) (Elected 31.7.1922; died 25.8.1931 whilst still a member.)
Master Grocer. Chairman of the family firm of Henry Wood and Son Ltd, grocers and provisions
merchants of High Street, Dudley. He was the last of three generations to be connected with
the business, which was established by his grandfather in 1824. In the mid-1920s he handed
over the firm to Herbert Laxton, club member #163. Walter was born at the shop and lived most
of life in Dudley although his home for his last 8 or 9 years was Greenhill House, Wombourne.
He was a prominent member of the Unitarian church and trustee of the Parsons Charity and
Baylies’ Charity. He was also a keen horseman and member of the Albrighton Woodland Hunt
for many years.

49 Rev. Robert Henry HAWKINS, MA (1892-1989) (Associate Member, elected 21.8.1922; resigned
3.9.1923 on leaving the district.) Parish clergyman, curate at St Thomas,
Dudley, but his classification was changed to Hospital Chaplain on
16.10.22. Born in east London, the son of a vicar, prebendary of St Paul’s
cathedral, he studied theology at St Edmund Hall, Oxford and graduated in
1913. During the First World War he was commissioned as Second
Lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment in October
1914, later seconded to the Army Cyclist Corps, then for the last two years
of the war was a pilot-instructor in the Royal Flying Corps with the rank of
Captain. He resumed studies after the war and received a Master of Arts
degree in 1919. He was ordained a deacon in 1919 and a priest in 1920. His first ministry was
as Curate of St Thomas’ Church, Dudley, 1919 to 1923. From there he moved to become Vicar
of Maryport, Cumbria (1923-27), then Vicar of St George’s, Barrow-in-Furness and Rural Dean
of Dalton (1927-34), Vicar of Dalston with Cumdivock, near Carlisle (1934-43), Vicar of St Mary’s
Nottingham and Honorary Canon of Southwell Minster (1943-58), and finally Canon of St
George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle (1958-70). There is a memorial to him set in the floor of the
chapel at Windsor Castle. In Barrow he was fined for keeping his army-issue revolver without a
licence, in Dalston he divided the community by siding with the 50 conscientious objectors
billeted there, and during his period in Nottingham he led the opposition to cinemas being