Page 53 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

158 Arthur Edward OSBORN, often spelled Osborne (1873-1974) (Elected 26.1.1931; resigned
31.7.1933 owing to pressure of business.) Chain, cable & anchor manufacturing. He was Works
Manager with N Hingley & Sons Ltd at its Netherton Iron Works. His work presumably included
oversight of the subsidiary company the Netherton Iron Chain, Cable and Anchor Company Ltd
since the greater part of his working life was in the anchor-making industry. He grew up and
was married in Ecclesall Bierlow, the same district of Sheffield as his colleague Joseph Fletcher,
chief engineer at Hingleys and club member #56. He came to Dudley in the early 1900s. Like
Fletcher he was closely associated with King Street Wesleyan Church. For a number of years
from 1927 he was a Director of the Dudley & District Benefit Building Society and was President
of the Staffordshire Iron & Steel Institute in 1933. He died aged 101.

159 Arthur Oswald LLOYD, MC (1893-1950) (Elected 23.2.1931; resigned 25.4.1932.) Textile
Merchant. He was the son of Samuel Cook Lloyd (founder member of the club) and therefore
presumably the ‘son’ in S C Lloyd & Son, Dress and Household Drapery, 33 Market Place, Dudley.
He was brought up in Dudley and attended Dudley Grammar School. In the early 1930s he was
a director of the Dudley & District Benefit Building Society. His home was in Ednam Road but he
moved to Stratford upon Avon in 1935. His occupation after that is not known. He left Stratford
in 1948 and eventually died in Peterborough in 1989 aged 95.
During the First World War he served with great distinction in the Worcestershire Regiment
in France and Belgium, being awarded the Military Cross with two bars for acts of conspicuous
gallantry and devotion to duty, all in 1917. In the first action at Gillemont Farm near Cambrai
‘he took over control when his company commander was wounded, and with great courage and
determination organised the defence and repelled three counterattacks.’ The second action was
at Ypres in August 1917: ‘He led his company in the attack with the greatest gallantry over very
heavy ground and under intense fire. The troops on his flanks had failed to come up, nevertheless
he held on all day, inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy. At dusk he withdrew to firmer ground
and consolidated in touch with troops on both flanks. He showed the greatest courage and
initiative, and remained at duty for twenty-four hours after he was wounded.’ The third action
was just a few days later, also at Ypres: ‘Having led his battalion forward from Divisional Reserve
through heavy shell fire he afterwards obtained much valuable information by going forward at
great personal risk under rifle fire, when the situation was very obscure. He several times visited
Battalion Headquarters under heavy shell fire to report in person.’ He was discharged with the
rank of Captain but remained in the Territorial Army for another 40 years and was promoted to
Major during the last war.

160 Rev. Charles BIGGINS, MA BD (1887-1943) (Elected 30.3.1931; President 1939-40; made
Honorary Member from 31.5.1943; died 1.12.1943.) Unitarian Minister;
minister of the Old Meeting House, Wolverhampton Street, Dudley from
1928 until obliged to retire in June 1942 because of ill health; President of
the Midland Union of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches 1932-33.
Born in Hull, he started work as a pawnbroker’s assistant in Bradford
but in 1909 won a scholarship at the University of Manchester and the
following year started five years of study at the Unitarian Home Missionary
College, Manchester. He obtained both a BA in English (1913) and
Bachelor of Divinity (1915). He was inducted as a minister in 1915, then
served as Unitarian minister at Marple, Cheshire for a year, at Todmorden, West Yorkshire 1916
to 1920, and then at Wandsworth, London and perhaps also the Unitarian chapels at Clapham
and Finchley before coming to Dudley. While in London he was also manager of the Unitarian
publishers Lindsey Press, and was in demand as a preacher at Unitarian churches all around the
country. He frequently preached at Bury … ‘seats free’, ‘books provided’! As part of his
missionary activities he visited numerous distant countries, including Japan. Towards the end
of World War I he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and in the last War was a member of