Page 30 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

office boy after leaving school at age 12, then became Clerk in a coal merchant’s office before
joining his father and brother in his mid-20s as a Manager in the cooperage business, and taking
it over in 1920. He was a freemason, member of the Harmonic Lodge, Dudley.

77 Frank George Griffin WALKER (1886-1950) (Elected 28.5.1923; resigned 27.5.1935.) Colliery
proprietor. He spent a lifetime in the mining industry, being owner and/or director of many
collieries in the local coalfields and more distantly. These included the Grosvenor Colliery Co.
Ltd which worked coal and fireclay in the Gornal and Stourbridge areas. He was a member of
the South Staffordshire Coal Masters Association, and chairman of the South Staffordshire
Mines Drainage Commissioners from 1947. He was due to be President of the Rotary Club for
1934-5 but had to defer and later resign from the club because he was heavily involved in
developing new mines away from Dudley. He was a leading local Conservative and a prominent
Freemason, being a founder member of the Old Dudleian Lodge in 1948.

78 Frank MORRIS (1878-1958) (Elected 18.6.1923; President 1931-32; made
Senior Active Member 18.6.43 after 20 years’ unbroken service, but became
infirm from 1955; made Honorary Member in June 1957 and died 2.7.1958
whilst still a member.) Original classification ‘Schools Dental Surgeon’, but
in December 1926 changed to ‘Poor Law Dental Surgeon’. The son of a
Worcester dental surgeon, he qualified in dental surgery from Guy’s
Hospital in 1900. After four years as an assistant at Walsall he started his
own practice in Wolverhampton Street, Dudley and continued until the
1940s. In the 1920s he founded the Dudley Schools Dental Service with
Gregory Bell. Each held clinics on two mornings a week. He later served on the Dudley Health
Executive Council when the National Health Service was formed. From his arrival in Dudley he
was an active member of Dudley Golf Club (then located off Stourbridge Road near Holly Hall),
becoming club Captain in 1930. He also played hockey for Staffordshire and was a fine snooker
and billiards player. He was well known for his performances in local amateur dramatics and
with Dudley Operatic Society. He was a member of Dudley Senior Conservative Club (Chairman
1922) and served on Dudley Council 1931-34. He was District Commissioner of the Dudley and
District Boy Scouts Association for more than 20 years from 1930, for which he was awarded the
national Association’s Medal of Merit in 1948.

79 Wilfred HUMPHREY (1900-1963) (Elected 2.7.1923; Secretary 15.2.1926 to 3.1929; resigned
29.9.1930 on moving away from the district.) Optician. Manager of the New Street, Dudley
branch of opticians Hudson Howard Limited and a Fellow of the Worshipful Company of
Spectacle Makers, ‘FSMC’. (Hudson Howard had other branches in Walsall, Stafford,
Northampton and Cardiff.) His home was in Tansley Hill Road. He came from Nottingham and
moved to Bournemouth where he continued as an ‘ophthalmic and engineering optician’.

80 Richard Lewis GREEN, Major (1875-1965) (Elected 15.8.1923; resigned 2.11.1925.) Veterinary
surgeon. He qualified in 1898 and joined his father in business as Abraham Green & Son,
veterinary surgeons, of King Street and New Mill Street, Dudley, and later of Ednam Road. He
followed his father as Borough Veterinary Inspector. Before and during the First World War he
served in the 1st Worcestershire Royal Garrison Artillery Volunteers and the Army Veterinary
Corps, seeing action in Belgium and France during 1915 and rising to the rank of Major. Until
called away on active military service he was District Commissioner of the Dudley Boy Scouts.
He left Dudley in 1956 to live with a daughter near Bramcote, Nottinghamshire, and the town
lost one of its few men still sporting a winged collar and bow tie.