Page 75 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

Wolverhampton selling swimming pools and latterly managing the Royal Pavilion in Blackpool.
Sadly he killed himself at home in a gas-filled room at the age of just 51. He had been a keen fly
fisherman and golfer, and for some years was President of West Bromwich Albion Supporters’
Club.

232 Harry Mitchell PELL (1896-1950) (Elected 9.12.1940; membership terminated 31.10.44.)
Classification ‘Bands and Orchestras’. Musical Director of Dudley
Hippodrome, working for the Kennedy brothers, from the theatre’s opening
in 1938 until August 1944 when he left to form his own Harry Pell Orchestra
and take over The Cabin, one of Birmingham city centre’s best known inns.
(His successor at Dudley Hippodrome was Billy Hand, club member #289.)
He transferred from The Cabin to manage the Swan Hotel, Tenbury Wells
and later a hotel in Southsea, but throughout this period he was still
directing his own orchestra. He returned to live in Birmingham and run
several dance bands only months before his death.
Harry grew up in Scarborough, Yorkshire. On leaving school he started as an assistant in a
boot and shoe shop but he came from a family reared in the tradition of brass bands so music
was his passion. He started as a cornet player at the age of six, and went on to be a noted soloist
and made many gramophone records playing that instrument. He was also an accomplished
violinist. He began conducting at the age of 15 and during his career worked with nearly every
type of band. In 1914, at the start of the first War, he joined the 8th Yorkshire & Lancashire
Regiment but showed such musical talent that he was sent to Kneller Hall for training as a
military bandsman. He was appointed the regiment’s bandmaster and served in Italy, appeared
as one of the four British representatives at an international concert, and had an audience with
the Pope. Following the War he transferred, as Lieutenant Pell, bandmaster, to the 7th Battalion
Durham Light Infantry. He combined this with leader of the Rink Dance Hall orchestra,
Sunderland. In 1924 he joined the BBC in Newcastle as assistant musical director of the BBC
Northern Orchestra. In the same year he made the first of several thousand radio broadcasts at
home and on the World Service. He also set up the very first broadcast brass band contest. As
a sideline he was also a musical instrument dealer in Sunderland. Two years later he took the
post of musical director at Portsmouth Hippodrome, then after another two years, in 1928,
became Musical Director and conductor of the Birmingham Hippodrome Orchestra. At the same
time he was responsible for the pit orchestra at Wolverhampton Hippodrome and was running
a dance band agency. He left Birmingham Hippodrome after 10 years to be musical director at
Dudley Hippodrome. Golf, motoring and football were his main relaxations.

233 William (‘Bill’) Edward BALLARD (1896-1978) (Inducted 9.12.1940; President 1955-56; died
19.4.1978 whilst still a member.) His original classification of ‘Metallurgy’
was soon changed to ‘Metal Spraying Services’. He was Founder and
Managing Director of Metallisation Limited of Peartree Lane, Dudley,
specialists in the surface coating of metals, and an early pioneer and world
expert on metal spraying. The firm continues as a global leader in the
design and manufacture of metal spraying equipment for corrosion
protection of steel fabrications and engineering coating applications
within the automotive, aerospace, hydrocarbon and manufacturing
industries.
Bill was born in Kings Norton, son of a carpenter, and lived all his life in Birmingham except
for a brief period of service in France with the Royal Engineers Special Brigade towards the end
of the First World War, brought short because he was wounded in action. He was educated at
Birmingham Municipal Technical College, and aged 17 joined Muntz’s Metals, manufacturers of
special brass products in Birmingham, as a metallurgist. He was delivering learned papers about
his work in his mid 20s. His career took off through the vision of another member of the Rotary