Page 49 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

Arthur suddenly found himself in reduced circumstances but was so well thought of in the town
that a most successful benefit concert was staged for him at the Dudley Opera House. Arthur
went back to being a piano tuner and music teacher, and probably continued for another 15
years or so in Dudley before retiring in the early 1950s to the Evesham area. He was evidently
an outgoing character because during the Dudley Carnival weeks of 1929 and 1930 he played
the role of the King of Mirth, being carried around the town in a golden chariot drawn by two
lions (‘difficult work for two young men’), creating much fun and ‘knighting’ many citizens. His
father was a founder member of Cardiff Rotary Club.

143 (Seems to be someone missing about here.)
144 (Seems to be someone missing about here.)

145 James SNOXHILL, CBE (1896-1967) (Elected -.10.1928; Secretary from Apr.1929 to June 1932
and again from July 1933; resigned 31.12.1946. Chairman of the District
Vocational Services Committee in 1945.) Insurance (Approved Society). He
was Chief Secretary of the Midland Counties Mutual Benefit Approved
Society from 1926 to 1946, based in Dudley High Street until 1932 and
then in new premises in Priory Road. (During that period National Health
Insurance was compulsory for most workers but was provided not by the
state but by not-for-profit, member-controlled ‘Approved Societies’.) He
was Chairman of the Association of Approved Societies from 1938, a
member of Dudley National Health Insurance Committee and its Chairman
from 1942, and well known nationally in matters concerning social insurance. From 1944 he
was Vice Chairman of the Social Security League which was canvassing for reform of the social
insurance scheme. He left the club on being appointed Midlands Regional Controller of the
Ministry of National Insurance (later Pensions and National Insurance), a post he held until
retiring in about 1961 and for which service he was made a CBE in 1955.
He was born and raised in London and served in the East Surrey Regiment during the Great
War. On coming to work in Dudley he lived first at Amblecote, then Stourbridge, and later
Edgbaston where he remained until moving to Worthing in his retirement. He was first
Chairman of Dudley Round Table, founded in 1934, and had a close association with Dudley
Orchestral Society, being its Chairman in 1946 and subsequently Secretary.

146 George Alexander HASTINGS (1885-1948) (Inducted 17.12.1928; died 27.7.1948 whilst still a
member.) Printer. Senior partner of Williams Bros. (Printers) Ltd, printers and bookbinders of
King Street, Dudley. As a Rotarian ‘he devoted a considerable amount of time and service,
especially in regard to social functions and those efforts which brought pleasure into the lives of
the poor young people of the town’. He grew up in Liverpool. After leaving school at the age of
13 he worked as a shipping agent’s clerk and salesman. This work was interrupted by service
with the Forces during the 1914-18 war. He came to Dudley soon after.

147 Arthur Gerald MARRIS (1893-1955) (Elected -.5.1929; resigned 27.10.1930.) Motor Spirit
Distribution. Immediately prior to joining the club he was manager of the British Petroleum
depot at Walsall, but the company had another distribution centre at Brierley Hill so perhaps he
transferred there. He soon moved away from the district but a few years later returned to live
in Birmingham, the city of his birth. From the outbreak of the last war he was a District official
with the Petroleum Fuel Board, an executive body working under Government direction to pool
the fuel assets, manpower, equipment and financial resources of all the UK fuel suppliers. He
presumably remained with the Board until it was wound up in 1948 and then returned to his
former company. His early training was as an electrical engineer in Birmingham but in his 20s,
while the Great War was being fought, he spent some time working as an engineer in South
Africa.