Page 23 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

coke as before. However Percy gave up his business in 1938 when he moved to Handsworth
after discovering his wife was having an affair with former Rotary member Otto Bergendorff
(member #130). He became a commercial traveller in leather goods. As a boy his home was the
Green Dragon Inn, Upper Gornal, where his father was the publican. His early employment was
as a fender manufacturer’s clerk. He was noted for his fine singing voice, and was a member of
the Harmonic masonic lodge.

55 Charles Roland STAMMERS (1868-1935) (Elected 4.9.1922; resigned
6.10.1924.) Wholesale clothing manufacturer. Director of Grainger &
Smith Ltd from 1917 to 1928, having joined the firm in 1888 and been
General Manager of the Clothing Department and its Town Mills factory,
Dudley from about 1895. In 1922 he and his colleague W R Manning set
up Town Mills Ltd to expand ‘the business of clothiers, outfitters, hosiers,
milliners, hatters, glovers, and wholesale and retail dealers in textile
fabrics etc.’ He remained a director until his death. He was born in Hanley,
Stoke-on-Trent, the son of a clothing shop manager and one of 10
children. The family moved to Aston, Birmingham when he was a boy, and then to Handsworth
where he started work as a tailor. After joining Grainger & Smith he lived at Wellington Road,
Brooke Street and St James’s Road, Dudley until 1925 before moving to Lightwood Hill,
Smethwick.

56 Joseph Ernst FLETCHER (1867-1939) (Elected 16.10.1922; resigned
25.4.1927.) Consulting metallurgical engineer. Chief Engineer and
consulting metallurgist at N Hingley and Sons, iron and steel manufacturers
and chain makers of Netherton, for 33 years from 1906. Also for two years
from 1923 he acted as Director of Research for the newly-formed British
Cast Iron Research Association, after which he continued as Consultant to
the Association. He was a leading designer of ships’ anchors and other
specialist cast iron and steel products, for which he held numerous
patents, and was a prominent figure in the industry, becoming President
of the Staffordshire Iron & Steel Institute 1915-18 and a council member of the national
Institute. For his research papers, in 1918 he was elected a member of prestigious Faraday
Society, forerunner of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He travelled widely in the United States
and on the Continent in connexion with his business and scientific interests, and was an active
member of numerous scientific bodies.
He was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire but his family moved to Heeley, a suburb of Sheffield,
when he was a boy. On leaving school at 14 he started as an apprentice with the Savile Street
Foundry & Engineering Co. in Sheffield, working his way up from moulder to draughtsman-
designer. After 5 years he spent a year studying mechanical engineering at the Normal College
of Science and School of Mines (now Imperial College), London. From there he became an
engineer/ draughtsman with local steelmakers Thos. Firth & Sons and then steel-foundry
manager of its Norfolk Works. In 1894 he joined Charles Cammell & Co., also in Sheffield, as
assistant steelworks manager at its Cyclops Works, promoted to manager in 1901, a position he
held for five years before coming to Dudley. He was a keen Wesleyan Methodist, closely
associated with the King Street Church in Dudley and the local Methodist circuit until his death,
and was a former president of the Dudley and District Free Church Council. For many years after
leaving Sheffield he continued as a trustee and regular attender at the Heeley Wesleyan Church
there.