Page 37 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

which he held until retiring in 1946. In retirement he was soon appointed Chairman of the Rent
Tribunal for Somerset, and an Independent member of Somerset County Council.

100 Ernest Heath FOWLER (1874-1943) (Elected 1.9.1924; resigned 30.3.1931.) Bedding
Manufacturer. He traded as Heath Fowler Limited, ‘Cabinet makers, Upholsterers, Bedding
Manufacturers and Complete House Furnishers’ of Stone Street, Dudley. He had a varied career:
on leaving school he became a draper’s apprentice in Dudley; then he was a house furnisher’s
assistant in Oxford in his 20s; and back to Tipton where he was a commercial traveller for an
iron foundry in his 30s. At the end of the Great War he set up in business on his own account,
first as a brass founder and manufacturer of domestic metal fittings, then as a cabinet maker,
and soon as a general hardware merchant and supplier of household goods. He converted to a
limited liability company in 1924 with outside directors. He appears to have been associated
with Heath Fowler Limited until his death but, curiously, at 1939 he was described as a
‘commission agent’.

101 William John PRICE (1890-1975) (Elected 1.9.1924; President 1948-49; died 16.2.1975 whilst still
a member.) Fire brick manufacturer. He was Managing Director of J T Price & Co. Ltd, firebrick
manufacturers and colliery owners in the Dudley and Stourbridge areas. It was a family owned
firm, founded by his father, until floated as a public company about 1950. In 1956 it acquired
local rival Mobberley and Perry Ltd, then in 1957 merged with E J & J Pearson & Co. Ltd to form
Price-Pearson Refractories Ltd. W J Price became the first Chairman. The firm continued to
expand rapidly both locally in the Stourbridge area and in County Durham. He retired in about
1967 when Price-Pearson merged with Sheffield-based refractories firm J & J Dyson to become
Dyson Refractories. He did not go directly into the family business but started work as a clerk
in a local steel works. He was raised in Stourbridge but as a young married man lived first in
Dudley. He moved to Stourbridge in 1927 and eventually to Pedmore.

102 Robert WOOD, Capt. (1893-1979) (Elected 1.9.1924; resigned 30.3.1931.) Enamelled Sanitary
Ware. He was a Chemical Engineer, Works Manager of the Sanitary Fireclay Department of
Doulton & Co’s Springfield Works, Rowley Regis and a little later a director of the company. He
appears to have previously been with Stourbridge Refractories Co. at its Shut End Works,
Pensnett. He lived at Bennett’s Hill until 1927 and then at Tansley Hill House, Oakham Road,
Dudley until moving to the Malvern area in the 1940s.

103 Arthur Edgar WESTLEY (1882-1949) (Elected 19.1.1925; membership terminated 19.3.1928.)
Metal Manufacturer. He was managing director of A Edgar Westley & Co., brass and bronze
founders of Kates Hill Brass Foundry in Price Street, which he took over in 1906 after having
been in partnership for a few years with John Silcock. The business continued well after his
death. He was also proprietor and managing director of Westley’s Dudley Garage Limited of
Castle Hill, dealers in Bean, Standard, Sunbeam and Clyno cars and commercial vehicles. His son
Edgar Oswald Westley succeeded him as proprietor of the motor company and joined the Rotary
club in 1945 (member #275). Edgar senior was also a director of the Criterion Cinema, opened
in Dudley in 1923, and of the Midland Construction Company, suppliers of tarmacadam and
other road materials, formed in 1931 to take over a failed business but which was itself
voluntarily wound up after two years. He was a prominent member of Dudley Conservative &
Unionist Association, a popular member of Dudley Zoological Society Fellows Club, and active in
fund raising for Dudley Guest Hospital. He lived in North Street, close to his brass foundry, until
1923 and then at 1 Ednam Road, Dudley.