Page 45 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

several years he was captain of Pensnett Tennis Club. He was a founder member and first
President of Brierley Hill Rotary Club, chartered 15.2.1939. Also in 1939 he was appointed a
Staffordshire County Magistrate for Kingswinford & Wordsley. He was a prominent Freemason.
At his funeral he was described as a born leader and the man who had put Brierley Hill and
Brockmoor on the map.

129 James Niven CAMPBELL (1882-1957) (Elected 15.11.1926; left 19.3.1928.)
Chief Constable of Dudley Borough Police from 1920 until retiring in 1946.
He took command when the Dudley force first became independent of the
Worcestershire Constabulary. He also held the posts of Explosives Act
Inspector and First Officer of Dudley Fire Brigade until the fire service was
nationalised in 1941, and was Air Raid Precautions Controller for Dudley
during the last war. In 1933 he was appointed a Serving Brother in the
Order of St John, and in 1943 was awarded the King’s Police Medal for
Distinguished Service.
He was born and raised in Aberdeen where he joined the town’s police force as a street
constable in 1901. After 18 months he was moved to the Central Police Office where he
prepared practically all of the police evidence for court cases. In 1904 he moved to the Grimsby
force, again principally in charge of clerical functions, and in 1907 was promoted to sergeant. in
1909 he was appointed Inspector of Winchester City Police, responsible also for Weights and
Measures. He held the post of Chief Constable of Clitheroe Borough Police from March 1913 to
until September 1914 and then Chief Constable of Bacup. He was there until leaving for Dudley
in 1920. While in Bacup during the First World War he requested the power to search houses
of people hoarding flour, sugar and potatoes.

130 Otto Leopold BERGENDORFF, MM (1896-1953) (Associate member
elected 6.12.1926; resigned 17.3.1930.) Commissioner for Oaths.
Solicitor in partnership with J Harold Round (member #122) until 1928 and
then on his own account from an office in Wolverhampton Street, Dudley
until his early death at the age of 57: he collapsed and died while presiding
at a Masonic meeting at The Lodge in Wellington Road. He was articled
to Sydney Hooper just before the Great War but did not qualify as a
solicitor until about 1921. He built up an extensive practice that took him
all over the Midlands, and he featured in several big murder trials.
He was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, son of a Swedish sea captain and a mother born in
Liverpool. His mother, by then a Danish national, brought him to Weston-super-Mare before
Otto was 15. His father remained in Denmark and died there in 1913, the year Otto came to
Dudley and started studying law in Birmingham. By early November 1914 he successfully sat
Intermediate level Law Society examinations but without waiting for the results he enlisted as a
gunner into the 6th South Staffordshire Battery, Royal Field Artillery. In February 1915 he
became a naturalised citizen and within days found himself serving in France. He was gassed in
November 1917 and for bravery in the field was awarded the Military Medal.
As a sportsman he was one of the first exponents of the crawl stroke in swimming and was
selected to represent England in the 1916 Olympic Games, which were abandoned.
Unsurprisingly he was closely associated with Dudley Swimming Club, being Honorary Life Saving
Instructor and Polo Captain from 1915, Polo Secretary in 1925 and club President in 1939. He
was also President of the Midland Water Polo League in 1929, President of the Worcestershire
County Swimming Association, and President of Dudley Harriers athletic club. He was secretary
of the Dudley Conservative Association for many years, its Chairman from 1950, and served as
a Dudley councillor at intervals from 1932 until his death, being made an Alderman in 1952. In
1938 he started an affair with the wife of former Rotarian Percy Fullwood (club member #54)
and eventually married her after Percy was granted a divorce on the grounds of her adultery.