Page 36 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

administering the Deed of Assignment - an alternative to formal bankruptcy - was accountant
William Lloyd who joined the Rotary club only a few months before King.)
A native of Nottingham he started in business with his older brother Louis owning and
operating high-class ‘King’s Restaurants’ in Nottingham, Derby and Leicester. He also managed
Nottingham’s historic Flying Horse Inn. He left Nottingham in 1915 to manage the Station Hotel,
Stafford for 5 years, and then the Queen’s Hydro Hotel, South Promenade, Blackpool for two
years before coming to Dudley. In his younger days he was vice-captain of Nottingham Rowing
Club and one of the earliest members of Derby Hockey Club. It is uncertain what became of him
after leaving Dudley but it was probably him who was reduced to a hotel cloakroom attendant
in 1939 in Westminster.

98 Harold CHAMBERS (1889-1960) (Associate Member elected 16.6.1924; resigned 2.7.1928.)
Motor Car Manufacturer. A qualified mechanical engineer, he was ‘Supervisor of Apprentices
and Employment Officer’ for A Harper, Sons & Bean Ltd, makers of Bean cars at the Hall Street
(Waddams Pool) works, Dudley. He left the Rotary club soon after the Hall Street factory closed
in 1927 when vehicle assembly was transferred to Tipton. Beans had its own sports club and
immediately after the First World War appointed him to be responsible for tennis, football and
cricket. However being a rugby player himself he set up two rugby teams for the season 1921-
22. In 1927-28 the Bean Rugby Club became Dudley Kingswinford Rugby Club, which continues
as a successful organisation today. He was its Chairman and then President in the early 1950s,
and also President of Worcestershire and Herefordshire Rugby Football Union from 1951.
Although born in Newport, Monmouthshire, Harold was brought up in Barrow-in-Furness. On
leaving school at 16 he joined Vickers Limited, shipbuilders and engineers in Barrow. He served
5 years apprenticeship gaining experience at fitting and turning and in the drawing office, then
a further 6 years in the gun mounting drawing office, the marine engine office and estimating
department. In 1916 he moved to Dudley to join the newly opened National Projectile Factory
operated by A Harper, Sons & Bean adjacent to its Waddams Pool car factory. The ‘NPF’ made
shells for the war effort. Over the next two years he progressed from Piece Rate Fixer to Head
Foreman to Assistant Works Engineer before transferring to the main Bean’s factory as Chief of
the Estimating & Rate Fixing Department. A year later he became Works Engineer and Organiser
of the Apprenticeship Scheme. Harold was an active member of Dudley Labour Party and its
Agent and Secretary 1930-36. By 1939 he had given up his life in industry and set up his own
business as Newsagent & Tobacconist with a shop at Queen’s Cross, Dudley. His wife Doris - a
Dudley councillor and magistrate - lived to be 101.

99 Geoffrey KNOWLES, MC (1889-1968) (joined Sept.1924 on transfer from
the Weston-super-Mare club; resigned 7.6.1926.) Town Clerk of Dudley,
Clerk of the Peace, and Clerk to the Urban Sanitary Authority from
11.9.1924. He came from Bristol City Council and returned there. A
Yorkshire farmer’s son he studied at Leeds University, served his articles
with the Town Clerk of Leeds, and qualified as a solicitor in 1911. He
became Deputy Town Clerk of Ilkeston but returned to Leeds in 1913 as
Assistant Solicitor. He joined the Royal Field Artillery (West Riding Howitzer
Brigade) in August 1914, saw action in France and Belgium, and was
awarded the Military Cross. He finished with the rank of Lieutenant. After returning briefly to
Leeds, in June 1919 he moved to Cambridge as assistant to the Clerk of the Peace. 18 months
later he was appointed second legal assistant (deputy registrar) in the Bristol Town Clerk’s office
but was soon made Senior Assistant Solicitor to the Corporation. At this time his home was in
Weston-super-Mare. After two years in Dudley he returned to Weston (and Weston Rotary Club)
in 1926 on being appointed Deputy Town Clerk for the City and County of Bristol. He then served
three years as Town Clerk of Weston from 1930 before returning to his previous post at Bristol,