Page 50 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

148 Arnold William GIBSON, JP OBE (1896-1960) (Elected -.5.1929; left in 1932
or 1933) Education (Technical College). He succeeded Dr John Grindley
(see member #97 above) as Organising Master and Principal of Dudley
Technical Schools in 1928, having previously been Lecturer in Engineering
and head of the mechanical engineering department at Hull Technical
College. At that time there were two schools, one in Stafford Street for
engineering, mining, science and professional courses and another in St
James’s Road for commercial classes, but in 1936 he became Principal of
the newly built Dudley and Staffordshire Technical College in The
Broadway. He was still Principal 24 years later when he died. He had a high reputation nationally
and overseas in the field of technical education and training. He was Secretary of the Association
of Principals of Technical Institutions from 1944 to 1959, becoming President just before his
death. He advised on the establishment of technical colleges in Ghana, Malaya and Singapore,
and in 1950 he was one of a small team sent under the Marshall Aid Plan to study education and
training for industry in the USA and publish its findings. He was awarded the OBE in 1954 for
services to education. He also served as a Dudley magistrate from 1952.
Arnold Gibson grew up in Crewe, Cheshire. He left school in 1913 aged 16 and started work
as an apprentice engineer but months later the War began so he joined the Royal Navy
Volunteer Reserve. He soon saw action in the defence of Antwerp and then in the Dardanelles
campaign at Gallipoli, northwest Turkey. While at the Dardanelles he was promoted from the
ranks to Sub-Lieutenant. Days later, in July 1915, he received a serious bullet wound to his left
shoulder which caused him to be discharged as medically unfit in March 1916. This allowed him
to study at Manchester University. After graduating with a BSc he became a turbine designer at
the British Thomson-Houston factory in Rugby before moving to Hull Municipal Technical
College in 1922 and then to Dudley in 1928.

149 John Edward LLOYD (1873-1957) (Elected - .6.1929; resigned 29.5.1933.) Banking. Manager of
the Dudley High Street/Market Place branch of Midland Bank from 1927 until retiring in 1936.
He lived at Pedmore but moved to Sutton Coldfield about the time he left the Rotary club. Prior
to coming to Dudley he was manager of Midland Bank, Summer Hill, Halesowen for eleven years.
(It changed name from the London Joint City & Midland Bank while he was there.) Brought up
in Wednesbury by his widowed mother he started as a clerk with the Midland bank there at the
age of 16. Later he was a clerk at the Walsall branch.

--- C E SLATER, full name and occupation unknown, was elected 10.6.1929 but does not appear to
have been inducted as a member. [Not a member at Mar.1930.]

150 Norman Stanley BACHE (1884-1964) (Elected -.7.1929; resigned 13.6.1932.) Firebrick
Distributing. He was the principal Selling Agent with E J & J Pearson Ltd, major manufacturer of
firebricks and other refractory products. He grew up at The Delph, Brierley Hill, only yards from
Pearson’s Delph Works, which was their main centre of operations. The company also owned
the nearby Tintam Abbey Mines and Works and the Crown Works at Amblecote, so he probably
worked for Pearson’s throughout his career. From school he started as a clerk but soon became
a commercial traveller in fireclay goods. At 1924, when he sailed 1st Class to Naples, he was still
described as a ‘Traveller’, but in 1930 when he again sailed 1st Class to Gibraltar with his new
wife (his first having died at a young age) he was described as ‘Merchant’, and in 1939 ‘Agent’
for fireclay goods. When he joined the Rotary Club he lived at Bank Street, Brierley Hill but
moved to Greenfield Avenue Stourbridge in 1930.

151 Albert Frederick (‘Bert’) DAVIES (1887-1972) (Elected 3.2.1930; left before Dec.1933.)
Automobile Retailing. Under the name of Bert Davies, he was proprietor of the Ford car
dealership in Wellington Road, Dudley from 1922 until 1968. He bought the business from his