Page 39 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

107 Raymond Kempson SAUNDERS (1893-1986) (Elected 16.3.1925; membership terminated
19.3.1928.) Steam engineer. He was a works engineer at Palethorpe’s
factory, Dudley Port, Tipton, supposedly the largest producer of
sausages in the world, and other meat products. A native of
Kidderminster he started work at age 16 as an apprentice in an iron
foundry, presumably local firm Bradley and Turton Ltd. He came to
Dudley from Kidderminster then moved to Wollaston, Stourbridge
about 1935 before leaving the district, by which time he was described
as a motor engineer. In 1937 he and his neighbour, local building
contractor Trevor Guest, - trading as G & S Light Engineering Co Ltd -
constructed a narrow-gauge steam locomotive that became a tourist
attraction at the Crown Hotel, Wychbold, pulling up to 30 adult passengers around a half-mile
railway circuit. This and their second locomotive moved to Dudley Zoo the following year. Over
the next 10 years or so, the firm built at least seven more narrow-gauge locos, but G & S Light
Engineering continued to maintain the zoo railway at least into the 1960s.
Raymond features in WW2 People’s War, a BBC Archive of World War Two Memories. At the
start of the war he volunteered for the Army, having served as a Sapper in the 1914-18 War, but
was turned down because his knee had been permanently damaged by shrapnel in the earlier
conflict. However he was considered too good an engineer to lose so he was posted from
Wollaston to Sheffield where he was made responsible for bomb disposal in that city and for
Hull, Rotherham and Doncaster. He stayed on in Sheffield, becoming ‘sub-regional controller’
for the Board of Trade.

108 Edward Francis Stanley HALLIDAY (1890-1968) (Elected 20.4.1925; membership terminated
21.3.1927.) Oil refiner. He was proprietor of The Phoenix Oil Company of Lower Church Lane,
Tipton, oil merchants and manufacturers of grease-removing soap, but the firm closed or moved
in 1927. He was born at Shardlow near Derby but was brought up from a young age by his uncle
who was Head Gardener at Patshull Gardens near Wolverhampton. From school he started work
as an electrical engineer in Wolverhampton until the First World War when he served in the
Staffordshire Yeomanry in Egypt and then with the Warwickshire Yeomanry as a Lieutenant. On
leaving the army he became a partner in the Phoenix Oil business. In 1939 he formed a new
company, Jubilee Oils, to carry on the business of producers, refiners and distributors of oils,
petroleum and petroleum products, and manufacturers and distributors of paints, varnishes and
chemicals, but in 1940 he signed up with the RAF in the Administrative & Special Duties Branch,
reaching the rank of Flight Lieutenant. His home was in West Bromwich until about 1935, and
then in Wombourne for 20 years before he retired to Reigate, Surrey.

109 Dr Francis (‘Frank’) Wyllie HALLWRIGHT (1868-1939) (Elected 16.11.1925; membership
terminated 19.3.1928.) Surgeon. He was a general practitioner with a surgery in Wombourne
and briefly also in Dudley (during the period he was a member of the Rotary club). His home
was at Townsend House, The Cross, Kingswinford. He was born in Birmingham, son of Matthew
Hall-Wright, surgeon/ general practitioner. (The family used the surnames Hall-Wright and
Hallwright interchangeably.) As a boy he was sent as a boarder to the Robert Pursglove
Grammar School at Tideswell, Derbyshire, to Epsom College, Surrey and Solihull Grammar
School. He then attended Mason College, Birmingham and studied medicine at Edinburgh
University. After qualifying in 1893 he trained at Charing Cross Hospital. He appears to have
returned to Birmingham and briefly joined his father’s practice, but then embarked on an
adventurous career.
He was first employed as a Surgeon by the British and African Steam Navigation Company,
which mostly plied between Liverpool and West Africa, and then as Assistant Colonial Surgeon
and Government Medical Officer in the British Honduras (Belize) Colonial Service, but in 1897
became so affected by fever and dysentery that he had to retire this position. However his