Page 22 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

in establishing the Halesowen division and was its President for many years. For his long service
to St John Ambulance Brigade he was made an Officer Brother of the Order of St John in 1955.
Frank was Worcestershire county councillor 1934-43, President of the South Staffordshire Iron
and Steel Institute in 1920-21, and was made the first Freeman of the Borough of Halesowen in
1957. He was a noted local historian, author of Halas, Hales, Hales Owen, a comprehensive
history of the town and parish. In 1939 he personally carried out a small archaeological dig at
the Halesowen Abbey church.

53 John CHILTON, JP (1867-1928) (Elected 4 .9.1922; resigned 7.2.1927.) His Rotary classification
was ‘Wireless installation manufacturer’ but nothing is known of this supposed business. His
principal activity was as a ‘Motor Car Agent’, which was how he was described when proposed
for membership. However he had a varied career and many outside interests:
He grew up in Dudley town, son of a labourer, and started work as a
postal telegraph messenger boy at 14. He progressed to become a
postman messenger, then from 1896 or earlier the sub-postmaster of the
Post Office and stationery business in Halesowen Road, Old Hill where his
older brother Joseph was Postmaster. He took over as postmaster on his
brother’s retirement in 1924. He was also associated with Chilton
Brothers, clothiers, which was next door. In parallel he established the
business of John Chilton & Co. in 1894 which became prestigious Motor
Agents with garages in Halesowen Road, Old Hill and Broad Street,
Birmingham, and for a time in Birmingham Road and Wellington Road, Dudley. He started in the
days of the push cycle, but when the Enfield Cycle Company commenced making a motorised
quadricycle he sold considerable numbers. He was supposedly the first man in the district to
own a motor car, in the days when a man with a red flag had to walk in front. In 1902 he teamed
up with J Ridley and T F Grier to produce the two-seater Ridley Skew Bevel cars; he then became
involved with Humber cars, but when their designer moved to Dumfries car manufacturer Arrol-
Johnston he became the sole agent for its cars in the west Midland counties. He also had the
Maudsley Motor Lorry Agency for Birmingham. A few years later he became agent for Rolls-
Royce cars. In his later years he served as a member of the national Motor Trades Association
and at the time of his death was vice-chairman. He evidently drove superior cars himself
because in September 1915 he was fined 40 shillings at Aston Police Court for having car
headlights that were too bright: they illuminated the carriageway for a hundred yards! It was
motoring that resulted in his death: he was fatally injured on 3.8.1928 as a result of an accident
near Huntingdon. He was driving alone when his car skidded on the wet road and overturned,
pinning him underneath.
He was a member of Rowley Regis Urban District Council from 1903 and its chairman in 1908,
also Captain of the Rowley Hills Fire Brigade; a member of Staffordshire County Council for Old
Hill from 1911; a Staffordshire magistrate on the Rowley Regis bench from 1917 and at that time
the honorary chief officer of the National Fire Brigade Union, and a notable local freemason.
During the First World War he a member of the Rowley Regis Military Tribunal which adjudicated
on applications for exemption from military service on grounds of occupation, hardship, ill-
health or conscientious objection. In 1915 he created a plantation of trees in Old Hill as part of
a Midland Re-afforesting Association scheme to beautify the Black Country.

54 Percy Lionel Richmond FULLWOOD (1884-1956) (Elected 4 .9.1922; rejoined 4.10.1926 after a
few months’ break; membership terminated 8.4.1929.) Coal & iron merchant. Until 1927 he
was in partnership with Harry Whitehouse (who joined the Rotary Club in 1934, member #174)
as Fullwood & Whitehouse, Coal, Coke and Breeze Merchants, also manufacturers’ agents, of
200 Wolverhampton Street, Dudley. The two of them, with another Dudley man, also started
Rogers Manufacturing Co. in 1921, to make pearl, cutlery and hairdressers’ sundries. From 1927
they continued as separate businesses, both based in Wolverhampton Street, selling coal and