Page 77 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

whilst gaining a Diploma in Public Health in 1931. After a period as assistant county Medical
Officer of Health for West Suffolk he took up a similar post for Hastings in 1935, then Medical
Officer of Health for Chorley, Lancashire from 1939 before coming to Tipton in 1941. He left the
area in 1950 to become Medical Officer of Health and Principal Schools Medical Officer for
Middlesbrough, Yorkshire (where he soon took the Borough Council to an employment tribunal
for an increase in salary!). In 1937 he wrote to the British Medical Journal advocating the
birching of teenage delinquents!! He later campaigned against pollution of rivers and estuaries,
saying that he was sure of a link with disease, particularly poliomyelitis. Although he died in
Middlesbrough he is buried in Belfast City Cemetery with his parents.

237 John Ashwin NAYLER (1901-1977) (Inducted 17.2.1941; President 1946-47; left 15.6.1953.)
Leather Manufacturer, later changed to Leather Belting Manufacturing. He was managing
director of John Nayler & Sons, Ltd, manufacturer of leather and rubber industrial belting and a
wide range of rubber products at the Castle Belting Works, Waddams Pool, Dudley and
Steelhouse Lane, Birmingham. In later years the emphasis changed to the manufacture of
specialist equipment for the oil industry. The firm’s products were sold around the world so he
made lengthy overseas business trips. The business was established by his grandfather in the
1880s, and continued by his father (both named John).
Rotarian John became Chairman of the Federation of Leather Belting Manufacturers of
United Kingdom in 1943, was a Dudley town councillor from 1947 to 1951, and a prominent
freemason in the Knights Templar Province of Worcestershire, being Commander of the
Bodyguard 1957-65 and Provincial Marshall 1965-1976. He lived at Hagley, then moved to
Dudley while he was a councillor, and finally to Kinver. However during the 1960s he had
apartments in Kensington and Belgravia which served as a base for another of his companies,
Nayler Petroseals, manufacturer of components for storage tanks. Although the original belting
company was wound up in 1985, Petroseals continues as a US based international manufacturer.

238 Thomas (‘Tom’) Herbert MURRAY-WATSON (1910-1993) (Elected 10.3.1941; membership
terminated 30.11.1942.) Advertising Service. He was an advertising and marketing consultant
and proprietor of Murray-Watson Advertising Service of Barclays Bank Chambers, Dudley
founded in about 1936. For a time he was also a director of John Travis Ltd, iron and steel
stockholders of Tividale. In the 1950s he opened a photographic division in Dudley and also a
London office in Brook Street, W1 to promote his advertising agency and his new ventures
Murray-Watson TV Ltd and Murray Watson Productions. Until 1937 he lived at Prestwood,
Kinver, then at Chaddesley Corbett for a few years before taking on Lincomb Hall and Farm,
Hartlebury, in 1944. There he had a pedigree Friesian dairy herd and market garden, and his
wife was a successful racehorse owner and trainer. The farm and his other companies were
wound up in 1971, after which he retired to a town house in Knightsbridge, London.

239 Gilbert Charles PITCAIRN (1896-1947) (Elected 10.3.1941 as an Additional Active Member; died
16.10.1947 aged 51 whilst a member.) Classification Metal Spraying Services. Sales Manager
with Metallisation Ltd of Peartree Lane, Dudley, specialists in the sprayed-metal treatment of
metal fabrications.
He was born in the Potteries, son of an earthenware manufacturer, but was orphaned at the
age of eight. He was sent as a boarder to the Colston Endowed School for Boys at Bristol, and
then continued his education in Glasgow where he joined a training ship. In the First World War
he was with the Royal Naval Reserve, starting as midshipman and finishing as lieutenant, serving
on armed merchant cruisers around China and East Africa and escorting convoys in the North
Atlantic. At the end of hostilities he joined the Clan Line shipping company of Glasgow and
within a year had received his Chief Officer’s (First Mate’s) ticket. He left the sea and joined a
pottery manufacturer, which resulted in his moving to Spain with his family where he became a
director and general manager of China and Earthenware Ltd of Seville. He was there for perhaps