Page 54 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

Dudley Civil Defence service and gave lectures in first aid. He was closely involved with the local
St John Ambulance Brigade and instrumental in the formation of its Cadet Corps.

161 Rev. William James TEAGUE (1884-1964) (Elected 30.3.1931; resigned 1.5.1933.) United
Methodist Minister. Superintendent Minister of the Dudley Circuit from
1928 to 1933, responsible for ten places of worship from Pensnett to
Upper Gornal and from Coseley to Harts Hill. He was also Chairman of the
Birmingham & Dudley district of United Methodist churches from 1931.
He moved to the Park Green Circuit in Macclesfield in 1933. After 4 or 5
years he was transferred to Hanley where he was minister for 10 years
before moving to Whitehaven, his last appointment before retiring in
1953. He returned to Macclesfield for his final years.
He grew up in the Plymouth area, then won a scholarship to train for
the ministry at Manchester College. He was ordained in or before 1909 but continued his studies
until 1910 when he became Methodist minister at Gateshead. Two years later he was posted
to Cheslyn Hay, and then in 1914 to Blackheath (near Dudley). He was briefly in London in 1918
before becoming minister at Heaton, Newcastle-on-Tyne that year. In 1925 he moved again, to
Eccleshill near Bradford, and then in 1928 came to Dudley.

162 Ernest James HACK (1879-1952) (Elected 29.6.1931; resigned 7.6.1937.) Quarrying. He was
Manager of the Blue Rock Quarries off Tower Road, Tividale, a major supplier of roadstone and
aggregate. His home was in Edgbaston and later in Quinton. He grew up in Loughborough and
started work as a builder’s clerk, moving from Loughborough to Manchester, Doncaster and
Rotherham. He then spent about three years, 1912-1915, working in Cairo, where he was a
freemason in the Bulwer Lodge. On his return to England he lived in Balham, SW London for
some years before coming to the Black Country in 1921 as District Agent for Highways
Construction Limited of Bloomfield, Tipton, specialists in bituminous road surfacing.

163 Herbert Alfred LAXTON (1884-1970) (Elected 14.10.1931; had retired by July 1954 so was made
a Past Service Member; left in mid-1962.) Grocery Retailing. He succeeded Walter Wood (club
member #48) as Managing Director of Messrs Henry Wood & Sons, Grocers of High Street,
Dudley and Owen Street, Tipton, having started there as Manager. He was brought up in
Spalding, Lincolnshire and became a grocer straight from school. He worked as a branch
inspector for a grocery firm in the South West, probably Underwood & Co of Plymouth, before
coming to Dudley.

164 William Spencer WILSON (1898-1979) (Elected 28.12.1931; resigned 7.6.1937.) Oil Stoves and
Heaters, Distributing. His business and position are not identified but he must have been with
one of the petrol distribution companies because at the start of the last war he was District
Manager (‘Operator’) for the Petroleum Board, which combined all former staff of the separate
petrol companies. He was born in Kings Heath and from school appears to have started work
with a tailor. Then came the war. In 1916 he joined the Royal Naval Reserve (claiming to be a
year older than he was), was soon assigned to the Royal Naval Air Service and then transferred
to the RAF, but all the time as a shore-based clerk at locations from London to Oswestry. After
discharge in 1919 he worked as a clerk with the Ministry of Labour in Sparkhill, Birmingham and
then as a ‘circuit manager’ (distribution manager?), also in Birmingham. He lived in Acocks
Green, Birmingham until 1927 when he moved to Oakham Road, Dudley, then to Tansley Hill
Road, and back to Oakham Road. He eventually died in Colchester.