Page 28 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

Abbot & Co., engineers, Gateshead-on-Tyne (1906-08); and then Ironworks Manager of Guest,
Keen & Nettlefolds’ London Works ironworks, Smethwick (1908-13), before joining J & C
Holcroft. From the time he joined the club he lived at Edgbaston, then moved to Little Aston,
and retired to near Sidmouth in Devon.

69 John Lewis FREAKLEY (1878-1958) (Elected 5.2.1923; resigned 28.4.1924.) Blast furnace slag
merchant. Managing director of the family firm of John Freakley & Co Ltd, slag and stone
merchants of Dudley Port, Tipton. He started in the business as a clerk, then cashier, before
becoming a director. He was a Deacon of King Street Congregational Church and long associated
with Dudley Golf Club, becoming Captain in 1934-35. He lived at Burnt Tree and in later life at
the Foxyards, Tipton.

70 Godfrey Meggitt MORTON, JP (1880-1952) (Elected 5.3.1923; resigned 17.3.1930.) Newspaper
owner. Proprietor of Herald Press, publisher of the Dudley Herald, and
later Chairman of Midland United Newspapers which became the owner
of Herald Press. He was raised in Lincolnshire, son of a printer and
bookseller, and started in that trade, but in 1909 became editor and
publisher of the Ross Gazette at Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. He was
prominent in that town and instrumental in setting up the Ross Traders
Association, forerunner of the Chamber of Commerce. He left in 1919 to
take charge of Herald Press, Dudley, but remained Chairman of the
Gazette (also part of Midland United Newspapers) until his death. He
was also chairman of the Blackett Press, Bath; Hepworth Press, Kidderminster; and Ford &
Addison, Brierley Hill; and a director of Dudley woollen manufacturers Grainger & Smith; M
Hyam Wholesale Clothing of London and Colchester; and Town Mills Ltd of Dudley. Despite his
business being based in Dudley, and being a Dudley magistrate from 1934 to 1950, he never
lived there. His home was in Cheltenham until 1929, then for the next 20 years just a mile away
at Charlton Kings, and at the end of his life he bought a house in Henley-on-Thames and an
apartment in the fashionable Eaton Square, London SW1. During the First World War he was a
member of the 1st Battalion Herefordshire Volunteer Regiment, rising to the rank of Major, and
during the last War was Ambulance Officer for Cheltenham.

71 Frederick Richard (‘Mac’) McDOWELL (1868-1951) (Elected 19.3.1923; left
c.1928.) Political Agent; Secretary and Agent for the Dudley Unionist
Association and local Conservative party from 1910 until retiring in 1919 but
resumed again from 1921 until 1928 when he finally retired because of ill
health. During this period he organised five General Elections campaigns,
all of which were won by his party. In April 1927 he offered to resign from
the Rotary Club because Rotary International said his classification was not
recognised under the Constitution, but a few weeks later, with the support
of RIBI, Club Council unanimously resolved that “the classification of Political
Agent is a proper one in Rotary and that Mr McDowell be asked to remain a member under that
classification”. In 1914, as the First World War was starting, he suffered a nervous breakdown
and went to Lisbon and the Canary Islands to recuperate. Soon afterwards, and setting political
rivalries aside, he and his Liberal agent counterpart John Dodson were largely responsible for
founding the Dudley Patriotic Committee which collected money for returning soldiers. In 1925
he helped organise a ‘great bazaar’ that raised nearly £20,000 for the Guest Hospital; and from
1923 to 1929 was a Dudley councillor.
He was brought up in South Hayling, Hampshire and started work as a gardener’s apprentice
at age 13. In his twenties he spent a time in Argentina before joining his mother in Rotherham
where she had re-married after being widowed. For a few years he was a gas meter reader and
Conservative & Unionist sub-agent in Rotherham before becoming full-time Conservative agent