Page 79 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

243 Doylah (‘Doy’) Ernst Thomas TANFIELD [Doylah Tanfield Junior] (1914-
1998) (Elected 15.9.1941; resigned 9.4.1946.) Income Tax Consultant
[Income Tax Brokerage]. Partner in Wall & Tanfield, chartered
accountants of Wolverhampton Street, Dudley and at Colmore Row,
Birmingham where he spent a lot of his time. He held many other
positions including: chairman of the British Housing Corporation, joint
Secretary of the Dudley & District Benefit Building Society (with his
brother A Reginald Tanfield, Rotary club member #64); director of his
wife’s family firm J Hickman & Son, which became part of the Lunt
Comley & Pitt group; president of the Birmingham & District Society of Chartered Accountants
and the Birmingham and West Midlands Chartered Accontants Student's Society; secretary of
the Old Bromsgrovian Club 1945-1959 (having been educated at Bromsgrove School); and a keen
cricket player and supporter, for many years being closely associated with Dudley Cricket Club.
He lived at Alder Coppice, Greenleighs, Sedgley but retired to Oldbury near Bridgnorth. He was
grandson of TW Tanfield and son of Doylah Tanfield, both club members (#38 and #93).

244 Joseph COHEN ( - ) (Elected 15.9.1941; resigned 22.5.1944.) Furniture Retailing. He was with
Messrs Jays Ltd, house furnishers of 66 High Street, Dudley but his position is not known. He
resigned from the club because he had joined the RAF and did not expect to return to Dudley
when the War was over. In the event it appears that he joined the Training Branch in 1942 as a
Pilot Officer but resigned his commission in 1944. Although his address was given as ‘Bryfield’,
Stourbridge Road, Holly Hall, this was the home of H Field so he was presumably a boarder. (His
name is so common that it has not been possible to identify him further.)

245 Kenneth Evelyn HALL (1909- ?) (Inducted 13.10.1941; left 23.4.1956.) Heating Engineer,
director of Hall Bros.(Dudley) Ltd, heating and sanitary engineers of Dixons Green, Dudley. He
was born at Malvern, son of Harold Evelyn Hall (club member #140), who was a house painter
at that time. The family moved to Kates Hill, Dudley about 1920 where his father set up a new
business as a plumber. Following his father’s death in 1938, Kenneth became proprietor of the
firm. In 1955 he moved home to ‘Cheznous’, Stourbridge Road, Dudley, and changed the nature
of the business to Builders but this lasted only a couple of years. He then moved to Blakenhall,
Wolverhampton and set up as a Grocer trading as The Pantry, but became bankrupt in 1961.
Although he discharged his debts quite quickly he appears to have left the district for good.

246 Kenneth Victor HOOPER, JP (1897-1982) (Inducted 3.11.1941; President
1957-58; made Senior Active member 15.9.1958; left about July 1961.)
Notary Public. Solicitor, partner in the firm Hooper & Fairbairn of Priory
Street, Dudley. He was also Official Receiver in Bankruptcy for Dudley,
Kidderminster and Stourbridge from 1935 in succession to Andrew
Fairbairn, his business partner and founder member of the Rotary club,
and was a Dudley Magistrate 1942-1966.
He was born in Dudley but attended Mill Hill School, NW London as a
boarder from 1909. He played in the cricket 1st XI and was a member of
the Officer Training Corps. He left school in summer 1915 and went directly into the Royal Naval
Air Service as a Flight Sub-Lieutenant. Within four weeks he had gained his pilot’s certificate.
He served in the Dardanelles but was seriously injured in action in June 1916. He remained on
the Navy List for the remainder of the War but as an invalided officer. However from 1919 to
1925 he was a noted batsman for Dudley Cricket Club. Kenneth’s father Arthur G Hooper, also
a solicitor and briefly MP for Dudley, had been in partnership with Fairbairn until 1914 so
Kenneth replaced him after his period of war service. Kenneth lived in Handsworth, Birmingham
from the early 1920s until 1961 when he retired from the law practice and the Rotary club and
moved to Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire.