Page 66 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

203 Herbert Kenneth WILKES, Major (1908-1979) (Inducted 10.5.1937; made Honorary Member
from 8.1.1940 for duration of war; resigned 13.3.1945 on leaving the district.) Accountant. His
business is not identified but there is a suggestion it may have been Vono at Dudley Port. It was
presumably a substantial company because he stayed in New York on business for a month in
1936. He moved to Bolton in 1945 and then to Bournemouth in 1951. After 6 or 7 years he
moved again to the Southampton area. He was a keen yachtsman and during the 1960s
designed the ‘Quartermaster’ self-steering mechanism for sea-going sailing yachts which went
into commercial production. A few years later he was running a navigation school for
yachtsmen. He wrote two highly regarded books - Practical Yacht Navigator and Ocean Yacht
Navigator - which continued to be published and updated after his death and were even
translated into Spanish.
He was the son of a sea captain who originally lived in Sedgley, but Kenneth was born in
Lambeth, London and educated at the Westminster School. He became a cadet in the school’s
Officer Training Corps and went on to be an officer in the Territorial Army, Honourable Artillery
Company. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Artillery as battery commander
defending an ordnance depot in Lancashire and was promoted from Captain to Major.

204 Reginald (‘Reg’) LITTLE (1894-1963) (Inducted 21.6.1937; resigned 8.1.1940 ‘regretting his
inability to attend meetings due to the emergency and the blackout’.)
Outfitter. Proprietor of Williams & Little, gentlemen’s and boys’ tailors and
outfitters of New Street, Dudley. He grew up in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire
and started as an apprentice mechanical engineer, following his father’s
occupation, but found himself in Dudley in his early 20s. He joined the
Territorials in the First World War and served in Mesopotamia (Iraq) where
he was severely wounded. In 1928 he went into partnership with the
established tailor Thomas Williams and became sole proprietor after
Thomas’s death in 1931. He was a member of Dudley Council from 1934 to
1955 when he was made an alderman, and Mayor 1947-49. He was an officer of the Chamber
of Commerce and Chairman of the local RSPCA, and during the last War was Adjutant of the
Dudley Squadron, Air Training Corps. He retired to Goring-by-Sea, Sussex but died just 3 years
later. He is buried in St Thomas’s churchyard, Dudley.

205 Horace Frederick PIPER 1905-1963) (Inducted 21.6.1937; membership
terminated 26.9.1938.) Duport Foundry, Tipton. He was presumably in a
senior management position, probably with the whole Duport group of
companies, from 1936 to 1946, but his exact occupation cannot be
identified. He lived in Paganel Drive, Dudley from 1937. He was born in
Ashford, Kent. From Ashford Grammar School he was awarded a
scholarship to Queen’s College, Cambridge University in 1923. From 1926
or ’27 until about 1933 he worked as a botanist/rubber planter in Malaya.
He then appears to have worked in Stevenage before coming to the Black
Country. He was with the Duport company through the last War, presumably involved with
military work because in May 1939 he joined the Royal Artillery - Territorial Army but on the
‘Special List’ and over 3 months was promoted from Lieutenant to Temporary Lieutenant-
Colonel. In 1946, as a Lieutenant-Colonel, he was appointed Commander of the Luneberg
administrative district for the British Control Commission for Germany. For this work he was
awarded the OBE in 1948. By 1953 he was Deputy Land Commissioner in the Lower Saxony
Ministry of the Interior and in April 1954 was appointed British Consul at Hanover. He was living
in Cologne when he died in 1963.
In his younger days Horace was a noted sportsman. He was a Cambridge University blue at
both football and cricket, and played soccer for the celebrated Corinthian Casuals both before